Mathematical Poetry
Stargazer's Diptych
The impetus for this poem was a project for a class at the University of British Columbia centered on the history of mathematics. The poem itself was a collaborative work between myself and Zachary Kuepfer, who wrote the first stanza of the diptych. Our intent with this piece is to challenge the pattern in academia of colonial narratives surrounding mathematical and scientific practices,. In the diptych we contrast the care and ingenuity of indigenous Pacific Islander mathematicians with the dismissive and uncurious response of colonial Europeans who were convinced that their own understanding must surpass that of the groups which they colonized, erasing a legacy of mathematics going back thousands of years which is only now being rediscovered by pioneering indigenous groups.
I.
Sidereal seafarers, celestial sojourners
Weaving through waves, whistling alongside
Birds breaking above, our bravery wavering
But eagerly Eastward, like eagles we flew
The stars were still with us, stalwart and trustworthy
Tracing their trails, we traversed through the night
Rising and reaching, roaming the heavens those
Pinpricks made pathways, pointing our way
A rosebloom of radiance, writing our destinies
Knowing their names, we knew where to sail
For Pur find Polaris, then Pleiades follow
It setting in solitude, somberly vanishing
As stars astride heaven, asterisms we followed
Their rising realigning, our rafts and canoes
We held up our hands, the horizon beyond them
And followed our fingers, forging ahead
But as seasons slip by, stars change their habits
As rains ravage Meliel, rightly old Antares
Ambles with Aquilae, away from Polaris
And fools follow blindly, falling from true
So listen and learn from me, lest you sail stray
Remember their meanings, messages from heaven
Allow them to lead you to lands of new birth
II.
Following stars with fictional stories
Romantic ideas of roaming ancestors
Pity the Polynesians, puffed with importance
Wanting a past, without much proof
Oral traditions can omit additions
Weakening stories of wonderful stargazing
A lack of cartography, lessening testimony
Why ought we believe what we cannot perceive
No memorization nor triangulation
Are kept in the senses of keen island sailors
As much as they might be moved to make claim
A voyage needs tables to venture for atolls
No cloudy reflections or rippling currents
Flying seabirds or fish strangely swimming
Nothing but science is noble for sailors
Finally, Spaniards far reaching sailed
Gifts then were given, granting new pathways
No matter how much they mutter and mumble:
Save for a sextant the sailors were stranded
Tools of geographers, taken ungraciously
Turned to the heavens, transcending heathenry
Civilization the subject of nations
Marked by the method of assessing the azimuth
Playing in Ashes
Come, sit.
Warm your hands around the fire
Which was lit thousands of years ago
As people stared up into the stars.
I have kept the flames burning for you
When you are older
You will tend to it
Let me show you how
Let us discover its secrets together.
To learn about the fire inside our circle
You must watch the fire that burns outside of it
Lightning strikes.
Eureka.
We sit in an empty hearth
There are ashes drifting through the air
There was fire here, once, but it is gone
Why don’t we follow it?
Where is it now?
No, they say.
You cannot follow.
You would be burned
For your hands are fragile
First you must learn to play among the ashes.
They do not realize
That ashes are nothing like fire.
The Wise Man of Elea
Space is an infinite series
A journey of uncountable steps
So said a wise man in Elea
Who had never heard of a Planck length
A thousand thousand careful steps
But we can never reach our goal.
Impossible, said the wise man of Elea
Motion cannot exist.
From A to B is an impossible dream
The wise man said
From Elea to Elba
Or Earth to the moon
The distance is the same
Impossible
The wise man said this
And many believed him
For he was, all agreed, very wise
And the mathematicians had yet to catch on
He was right about one thing
This wise man of Elea
Space is an infinite series
But he was wrong about the rest
We are sojourners of the infinite
All movement is mastery over the infinitesimal
To take a step is to complete a series
The act of motion an impossible convergence
Form Poetry
Sonnet 1
Scant days ago I strayed across a book
Among the surplus wreckage of a life
‘Twas full of poems, sonnets by their look
Of love, of pain, of happiness and strife
But one strong chord was sounded by them all
Which rang a less melodious sort of tune
Their author seemed possessed of spite withal
Denied of comfort he believed his due
A fragile sort of pining, ill portrayed
That made me fear for my own prating pen
And for some moments then I was dismayed
To be as fed by anguish as these men
I hope by this to prove for all to see
That loving need not so possessive be
Sonnet 2
A bard once penned some verse to woman woo
That ev’ry fair from fair sometime declined
He spoke of beauty then, not fairness true
Which in the gnarl-most lady one might find
I careful tread here, not to be mistook
And seem to call a beauty fairness-missed
When in mine eye a perfect grace you look
Your eyes do sparkle diamonds, heaven-kissed
Instead I aim to praise a higher star
From which you watch the spinning world below
That you so well-possessed of virtue are
Your fairness only stays, and cannot go
And so, my dear, be most assured of this
That time can only bring you better bliss
Sonnet 3
I do confess that I have thought some time
On which of all the words sounds worst to hear
I say that ‘soon’ to me is least sublime
When from your lips it falls upon my ear
Some men might say that never sadder be
But then at least I send you from my thoughts
And steel my mind from any hope of thee
Content with my bereaved, unhappy lot
But should you speak that melancholy word
That promises reward for patient love
I swear I never crueler torture heard
Though all the flaming devils came above
My love, you twist my heart the hardest way
Until the time your soon becomes today
Sonnet 4
He pulled you out to sled the snowy hills
And melt the ground with warm, unfettered joy
You feared that you would likely catch a chill
But were persuaded by your eager boy
You with a smile did relent at last
While moon shone o’erhead with palest light
As ‘neath it half a well-spent hour passed
The stars they sparked, a thousand diamonds bright
But evenings are not simple as they seem
When lovers bold defy their earthly bound
New plans may come from what were once just dreams
And far from simple yes his question found
My friends, you most of all have found true love
More pure than sapphire sky so far above
Sonnet 5
To speak of absent friends confounds the wit
My tongue lies heavy-choked by selfish tears
I cruely wish her not possessed of grit
To run home quickly cowed by foolish fears
So while I may be sad to watch her go
To stay betrays her eager quickling mind
Indeed, I love her more for leaving so
Despite the darlings dear she leaves behind
And so when chance did knock upon my door
To send a short, but heart-invested rhyme
Which, if luck hold, should land upon her shore
To tell how I, impatient, count the time
Her voice inside my conscience loudly laughed
And chided as I sent her my first draft.
Prose Poetry
Sweet Water
Inside the water there is a man. A man with short hair and eyes like buttons. He pulls out a sword that he swallowed centuries ago, hands it to me with the stone hilt dripping sweet water. I plunge it into his chest. He thanks me.
A Litany of Broken Things
A woman whose hands tremble as she washes dishes in the sink
The water went cold hours ago, but she couldn’t bring herself to get up while it was still hot
A man whose voice sounds like the bottom of a coal mine and smells like cheap beer
It’s his daughter’s birthday and he won’t make it home in time
We are pulled towards brokenness
With all the undeniable gravity of a collapsing star
We open the door on quiet hinges and peek inside
Trying to catch a glimpse before we’re noticed
A child who sits in the classroom long after the others have gone outside to play
There is an argument echoing in their mind that they weren’t supposed to overhear
An old man who doesn’t won’t answer the door or go outside
Because his wife’s coat is still hanging in the closet and it smells like her perfume
We hold onto broken pieces as though we can work miracles with superglue
But the world spins towards brokenness
And the smallest shards always slip through our fingers
But Oh! How they sparkle as they fall.
Powerful Affection
I love the moment when two men embrace. When they are truly filled to the brim with joy so that they tremble themselves into tightness. They get closer and closer and then they clasp with a force that they cannot contain. Their feeling brims out into their limbs and they collide like separated magnets. One whole. They reverberate. Each tries to lift the other ever so slightly until it seems they will fly into the air with emotion. There is no other path for these men. There is no other road for their love.
Night Walks
There was something calming about the darkness. It was a beautiful absence. Of light, of sound, of the frantic in and out of day.The stars asked nothing from him but silence. The sun asked for talking, and thinking, and sometimes it became too much. Stars were kinder. They did not have expectations. A shred of song floated to the front of his mind, and he suppressed the impulse to whistle. It would be unkind to tread on the quiet so deftly laid here. He stuffed the song back into his head for another time and moved on.
Shouting Joy
Art is not a silver lining to misery
I refuse to let it be so
There are only so many words for joy
But there are infinite words for sadness
Enough
There are enough words for sadness
We do not need new ones
I do not need another metaphor for loneliness
Or another way of saying that I am heartbroken
Why are all the most relatable creations
The ones that find us at our worst moments?
Let me relate to bliss
Let me see myself in adoration
Let me learn a new word for how I feel
When I know you are thinking of me
I am being the change I wish to see
If you go through my writings
And count the poems by the day
You can chart my sadness by how many poems
I have written
Today that will be different
Today there will be a poem that says
I am happy
I am content
I am joyful
I am jubilant
Today I am trying something new
I am shouting joy from the rooftops
I am tucking gratitude into people’s coat pockets
So they will find it when they get home
Art is beauty, and joy, and love
And love is not only heartbreak
Don’t listen to the poets
Be Something
There are two kinds of poems and both of them tell you that you are wrong. There are heart-pounding, lyrical, achingly true poems that tell you you are beautiful. That stomp on the words of your father or your preacher, your childhood bully or your third grade teacher. Poems that tell you that you can do anything. Shake the dust, stand tall, wear your heart on your sleeve. You are enough. Wake up, stand up. Good morning starshine, the earth says hello. Glade-dwelling, linen-wearing, deep breathing poems that have your best interest at heart and tell you that the words in your heart aren't always in your best interest. Replace them with better ones. Sweeter ones. Don't believe that just because the truth can be cruel, anything cruel is the truth. You've been lied to so long and so quietly that you have stopped noticing. Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself. These poems are water and honey and they think you are better than you are and most importantly they are right. And then there are the other kind. The brutalizing, bruise-making, beat you black and blue kind of poem that looks at your heart and doesn't even bother to stomp on it. You aren't worth the trouble. The beautiful, lung-crushing, spine shatteringly true poems that look at you and see the pile of garbage that you are sweeping under the rug until you can't bury it anymore and you scream at your mother over the phone and cry yourself to sleep. The poems that tell you that it was all for nothing. You don't deserve the nice words that the hero gets at the end of the story. You bend your neck for a medal and get a kick in the teeth and you earned it. You're the dragon, you're the monster. You're the problem, the one to blame for all your loose ends and lost friends and everyone you love is just pretending. There are two kinds of poems, and both of them know you better than you know yourself. You are wrong and they know it. You're the villain. You are destined for greatness. You're the hero and the witch and the woman in the lake with a sword in your outstretched hand and if you wake up tomorrow and decide to be a dragon then you will breathe fire and burn everyone you love. So listen to the poets, because they know you. But they don't know what you're going to do tomorrow. Be a dragon, be a hero, be a saint or a sinner but be something, damn it, because the only word worse than boring is interesting. Mean something, be specific. Be a person if you have to, but if you can, be something better. Sing in the rain or throw a tantrum in the frozen food aisle but make noise with your body, with your voice, with your heart. Shake the world with your presence until you decide what shape you want to make it and whose lines you want to read for because no one ever got the part of you by making small choices.