In a summer email from math-poet-editor Carol Dorf, I first enjoyed "If a Garden of Numbers" -- a mingling of numbers with the natural world -- by California poet Cole Swensen. I offer its opening lines below followed by a link to the complete poem.
If a Garden of Numbers by Cole Swenson
If a garden is the world counted
and found analogue in nature
One does not become two by ever ending
so the stairs must be uneven in number
and not exceed
thirteen without a pause
of two paces’ width, which
for instance, the golden section
mitigates between abandon
and an orchestra just behind those trees,
gradations of green that take a stethoscope: we risk:
Length over width
to make the horizon run straight
equals
to make the pond an oval:
Width
over length minus the width
in which descending circles curl
into animals exact as a remainder.
. . .
Cole Swenson's “In a Garden of Numbers” is from her collection Ours (University of California Press, 2008). Here is a link to the PoetryFoundation website which offers the complete poem.
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