From a poetic artist -- "New Math"

     Neha Misra, one of my neighbors (in Eastern Village cohousing in Silver Spring, Maryland) is both a poet and a visual artist; in a recent conversation, I asked Neha if she had any mathy poems -- and she  volunteered the following lines-- full of rich mathematical terminology paired with multiple -- and thoughtful --  meanings.  Thank you, Neha!

New Math        by Neha Misra
 
Because I once scored 49 out of 50
in a Mathematical Physics exam
that I was so proud of, still am.
I do not remember much of
signs of sines and cosines.
I remember the differential equations
were all fine, but I was in love
with the curves of integration—
 
Because I once taught a scared young boy
in the confident body of a man
to not let his exponential fear of math
come in the way of his waking dreams
of flying with numbers.
Paper and pen in our hands,
together we melted his fear of math
into the heart of zero
and he flew     
far   far           far             away from me
on the infinite new wings of those numbers—  

Because a number of years later,
through many passages
of differences and differentiations
of life herself, through oh so many
not-at-all-standard deviations of my own,
I find myself integrating myself with myself
in a fragmented world—
 
Because in a world that simultaneously
burns and drowns, I want to make
a New Math
in which, through passages
of acute and obtuse times,
our migratory love is much much much
greater than the valleys of our differences,
our fractional hands evenly touched
by the square root of such an odd irreverence.

       Neha Misra I नेहा मिश्रा (she/her/hers) is a first generation immigrant poet, a contemporary eco-folk artist, and an award winning climate justice advocate. Neha was born in New Delhi, India, whose soulful vibrancy is a part of her creative DNA. Amidst ecological, racial, public health reckonings of our times, Neha’s Earth stewardship centered multi-disciplinary studio uses the power of poetry to foster planetary wellbeing and justice. Neha is a 2022 Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis - an initiative of the OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication to change who writes history. To learn more, visit her webpage -- where you can view with awe and admiration her works of poetic and visual art.