POEMS/ Geometries
Geometries
Now in my mid-seventies
I always have to remind myself
to keep to the left
when I drive in Great Britain,
especially in roundabouts.
It’s so easy to forget where I am
and to enter the right lane by mistake.
I have to confess, though that
I like the structure and the concept
of going round about.
In school I liked geometry’s
exploration of forms and shapes
of many kinds of curves and arcs.
They were so much more appealing
than triangles and squares
and much more sensuous
than the predictable straightness of the line.
I remember being in a line
in Hanover, New Hampshire
where some other grey-haired
people in the queue
were very anxious about the way
the line curved. They worried
about latecomers not finding
the line’s end and cutting in.
They were afraid that if that happened
they would not get their favorite seat.
Not even the fact that the line was actually
quite short
could stifle their fears. The line insisted
on its inner right to be a circle,
its own essential crookedness
and that was just intolerable
to these ticket holders.Still, they
were going to an opera and should
have known that random twists and turns
must be expected in the course
of art and life—even when one is
just standing still and waiting.
From All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010)
Now in my mid-seventies
I always have to remind myself
to keep to the left
when I drive in Great Britain,
especially in roundabouts.
It’s so easy to forget where I am
and to enter the right lane by mistake.
I have to confess, though that
I like the structure and the concept
of going round about.
In school I liked geometry’s
exploration of forms and shapes
of many kinds of curves and arcs.
They were so much more appealing
than triangles and squares
and much more sensuous
than the predictable straightness of the line.
I remember being in a line
in Hanover, New Hampshire
where some other grey-haired
people in the queue
were very anxious about the way
the line curved. They worried
about latecomers not finding
the line’s end and cutting in.
They were afraid that if that happened
they would not get their favorite seat.
Not even the fact that the line was actually
quite short
could stifle their fears. The line insisted
on its inner right to be a circle,
its own essential crookedness
and that was just intolerable
to these ticket holders.Still, they
were going to an opera and should
have known that random twists and turns
must be expected in the course
of art and life—even when one is
just standing still and waiting.
From All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010)