Another poem?!

[labellementeuse]

Yeah, so I'm on a roll.

This one is wierd (=my favourite sort of my own poetry, cf the columbus poem which is my favourite of my own peoms at the moment.) Anyway, it came to me after class this morning. It's sort of about maths. um.


walking in bright sunshine
after maths
and thinking about that peculiar form of the mean value theorem
oh, false, eternally comforting saw:
it’s always darkest just before the dawn.

it may take a moment
for you to see precisely
how this connects to mathematics.
you may not be familiar with the mean value theorem:
so an explanation.

imagine two points on a wall, an equal distance above the ground.
take a spraycan
a biro
a vivid; whatever you want, and draw a curve
connecting the two.

it can sprawl, loop
twist and turn
dip, rise
whatever you want: but if it is to join
the two points
you will find that somewhere it must turn in on itself;
where it was rising it must fall, or where falling, must rise.

this, then, is the mean value theorem: that on any line joining these two points,
someplace there must be a change.(naturally
this is not an explanation, only an idea, an ideal;
I could mention derivatives and equations, tangents to the curve
but then what has mathematics to do with poetry?thus)

it’s always darkest before the dawn: this, then
is its origin.

things must change, the line must rise, dawn must come again.

yet false, false.it is a lie.

if it is true in mathematics it is not true in the world: even in plain daylight we can see
that after the darkest moment
the lowest dip in the line
we have still many hours to go

before the dawn.
editing suggestions, anyone? does it even make sense?

Comments

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

It makes massive amounts of sense. But that's because we've just started on differentiation.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

*grinning* Well at least it makes sense to someone, anyway. :D