Good numbers . . .

     My wish for the New Year 2012 is that you will have good numbers -- that your happiness will have high peaks, that your sadness and grief will weigh no more than you can bear.
     In the spirit of assessment and introspection that captures many of us at year-end, I offer a small poem, "Good Fortune" -- one that I wrote in late December ten years ago when I was, as I am now, taking stock. "Good Fortune" appeared in my 2006 chapbook, My Dance Is Mathematics (Paper Kite Press -- available online here). Another tiny poem, a more recent one, "14 Syllables" -- from Red Has No Reason (Plain View Press, 2010) -- continues the focus on assessment using numbers. 

     Good Fortune     by JoAnne Growney

     is good numbers—
     the length of a furrow,
     the count of years,
     the depth of a broken heart,
     the cost of camouflage,
     the volume of tears.

 
     14 Syllables    (from Red Has No Reason by JoAnne Growney)
 
     A hen lays eggs
     one by one;
     the way you
     count life
     is life.
 

Happy New Year, 2012!

  I hope to see many friends at the 2012 Joint Mathematics Meetings  --
PLEASE COME  to the  POETRY READING
on Friday, January 6 at 5 PM in Room 312 at Boston's Hynes Auditorium --
sponsored by the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.