Recently I have been revisiting the poems that Sarah Glaz and I collected for the anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters / CRC Press, 2008) and renewing my enjoyment of them. Here, from page 146, is a sample.
The Proof by Theodore Deppe
I could live like this, waiting on the roof
for the great egret that flies overhead
at just this time, measuring the sun's height
with my fingers to see if the moment's come,
Annie studying the horizon as she describes
the last minutes of a show she watched
in which some mathematician -
she didn't catch the name - labours seven years
to solve a proof he's been enthralled by
since childhood, and though Annie tuned in
too late to know the nature of the problem,
she loves the pure joy with which he looks
into the camera and announces, I've found it -
there are tears in his eyes - I've found it.
Posts
