I Graph Relationships
Novelists are actually mathematicians.
We graph the interplay of conversation
Show the probabilities of human interaction
Write equations for the human heart
Breaking down the large and infinite into
Personal chunks of people
There is gravity in relationships
The come hither/go away in love
Mapped out with the words of an author
Factoring out a person from
The role they play in their lives
The orbit of people around God
Whomever they believe a deity to be
Sucked in by faith and an idea
So much bigger than who they are.
Other people spin around, drawn close
But somehow never touching.
Mathematics is poetry is people
We echo the patterns of the people before us
Who echo the patterns of the world.
What patterns, what poems, what dreams.
And this is why I write.
Bead Poem
Twelve year olds aren’t good at fundraising.
But I did it anyway.
I sold about ten dollar’s worth
Of beaded animals for my sister’s
Mission trip.
I wanted to help.
So I did.
I have bead critters somewhere
Or I did before the moves.
All with names in different sizes,
Skunks and a lochness and a duck
Snow man, mice. Lots of mice.
One rabbit.
Not stuffed animals, not cuddly.
But I made something.
Spheres and stories of my childhood,
Audio books and colors, patterns.
So much loss in growing up, dicvorce.
Where my spheres, but perhaps
Time to let them go.
I mourn them more than my father (they were
there far more than he) Relics of a simpler time.
Soft and rounded memories, taken over
By quilts and cloth and love.
More practical, more fun, more involved.
I still miss the quiet rhythm,
Reminder of my nimble fingers.
Language my new beads, new craft.
Less messy, cheaper. More portable.
Somehow less tangible.