You can’t be a good mathematician, a scientist, if you can’t see wonder everywhere around you.
Ken Ono
This is for he with two eyepatches and beautiful numbers.
0
Is the sparkle of a frozen lake
In that white silence of winter.
1, a single blade of grass
Upright in bare expanse,
Towards the blazing golden sun
With the shine of petrichor;
2, dancing hands upon the
piano
Soothing
smashing
screaming—
I hoped, at first, I’d
Have a number for
Every little stanza:
That’d be very
Mathematical
I thought.
But then I thought
Of 100: Diamond dew on daisy dawn
And realized that
Well
I’m not writing 100 stanzas,
Thank you very much.
i, by and by, is the silent thump
Of an ic
icl
e
falling into snow
(Walking through a darkened land
Silent crashes all around
Imagined terrors creeping ‘round
Like burglars in the night.)
e is fireflies
Flickering to life in the
Setting sun, doubling
And doubling and doubling
Some more.
1/9 is the road
From Reno to Las Vegas
And the game of Desert Bus
Racking up points one by one,
8 hours by 8 hours.
π is a sports game and the
(Sweltering, stinking, searing)
Press of sweaty noisy fans,
Of greasy hot dogs
And doughy corn dogs
From the overpriced concession stand;
Company and hype in one classic clump.
φ is a golden sea
From end to gleaming end
Of sunflowers and buttercups and daisies bright.
(iπ)^(e) is ice cream splatters on concrete
And the look on a little girl’s face
The shrill scream in her voice
As she stares at her empty cone.
Collatz is pointe shoes
Graceful (bloody) beautiful (pain) packaged in pink
Wrapped in ribbon and perfect tulle
And giggling tinkling Sugar Spun Sprites.
1000, cresting waves of roiling forest,
10000, the rush of the wind from a parachute,
1000000, sea all around from the mast of a ship . .
I could go on for
E t e r n i t y
(until
I n f i n i t y)
About these colors and paintings
That cannot be seen.
I recently went to a talk by Ken Ono about “The Man Who Knew Infinity” and Ramanujan. During the Q&A, someone with synesthesia described 100 as daisies and dew, and it was so beautiful I felt I had to write about it. Someone with synesthesia asked about it during the Q&A, talking about dew on daisies and 100. I thought that was beautiful, so I wrote this poem.