Replying to a comment on:

Numbers In Heaven (Free verse) by Dovina

My name is 183, one of myriad, born in heaven, nestled eternally between two evens, and called, with affection, odd. Some of us are prime, numbers so perfect they were flung to distant worlds, if maybe there, their beauty too might be beheld. I take delight in knowing I am certain, fixed and real, never to be forsaken or replaced, unique, useful, unmatched and unmatchable. Pregnant with potential in Platonic minds, we odds alone, save the chosen 2, titillate their senses. Sometimes in anxious moments, Senses failing, in the wonder of it all, I feel an urgent sadness, imagine myself a figment of their god-like minds, a bipolar disturbance, perhaps a mere conveyance, no more than an assertion, a useful word. Then I feel contrived by them for pleasure and convenience, lovely only in their minds. But as the notion passes, I rest in heavenly peace, unequaled and real, fixed and founded, uniquely placed by God.

ecargo 13-Mar-06/11:04 AM
My ex is a mathematician, and though I didn't come away from our relationship with much real knowledge or understanding of mathematics, I did come away with some appreciation of mathematical aesthetics (in part from long hours spent struggling with _Godel, Escher, Bach_ and the like). He had a knack for making me understand, if only superficially and mostly by analogy (not being math brained), why he saw such beauty in numbers (even if, as Erdos said, ". . . you don't see why [numbers are beautiful], someone can't tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.")

Your treatments, frankly, don't make me see that beauty. I'm not saying that to be a jerk. Maybe it's that you don't give enough information or make the necessary connections. Or maybe it's that your observations seem, I don't know, somewhat contradictory or superficial. For example--what's the significance of 183? It's not a prime (though you go on to extol primes). It's odd, true, but so? Maybe the problem is that I just don't bring the necessary math chops to the table, but I don't think it's that alone.

You tap into a long tradition of seeing numbers as divinely inspired (I think that's part of what you're saying), from Gallileo to Erdos (not a believer, but he liked the divine analogy well enough) and beyond. And the reference to the the Platonic--abstract, unchanging truths--gives this some context it might otherwise lack. But some of it doesn't seem to hang together or perhaps just isn't fleshed out enough.

I do think your subject choices are often unusual and ambitious, which is commendable. And you do have a knack for inspiring reaction!




Track and Plan your submissions ; Read some Comics ; Get Paid for your Poetry
PoemRanker Copyright © 2001 - 2024 - kaolin fire - All Rights Reserved
All poems Copyright © their respective authors
An internet tradition since June 9, 2001