Showing posts with label Jenny Patton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jenny Patton. Show all posts

Monday, July 15, 2019

Mother-daughter geometry -- in poetry . . .

     Last week (July 9) was the birthday of my mother -- and, although her body lies in a grave, her spirit continues to dance (and to both inform and confuse me).  Recently published in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (January 2019 issue) this poem by Jenny Patton -- a creative writing teacher at Ohio State University and a wellness coach -- has been provoking my memories. 

       Geometry of Night     by Jenny Patton

       In three-dimensional Euclidean space,

       lines in a plane that do not meet are parallel.

       My beautiful aunt loved to sleep, blogs

       my insomniac cousin about my mother
       who went to her parallel life every night.

       Those studying Playfair’s axiom note the

       constant distance between parallel lines.