Numbers
I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.
I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.
And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.
Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.
There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.
And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.
Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.
by Mary Cornish
Tech Notes: Sent from my iPhone using the blog's post-by-email email address. Here's the how-to: Log in, go to the blog, go to Settings in the top toolbar, choose Post by Email from the left. Add the address to your iPhone contacts. If you are a lazy typist like me, use the page to send yourself an email- be sure to change the "Send Email" address to your email address, then open the email up on your iPhone. Add the address to your Contacts by touching the address in the "From: " box of the email.
Photo notes: onboard camera+ AutoAdjust+FotoMuse+PhotoGene
Recent Comments