VI. Numbers
ENCOUNTERING NUMBERS
(in not so easy pieces)
I.
My father (OBM) sits at the dining room table waiting
for my 2nd grade math papers. I am seven
and hopelessly left-handed and therefore,
by definition, imperfect. It was impossible to get the numbers
to line up in a straight line because my fist was in the way,
as difficult as it would be to write
with a ballpoint pen without turning my fingers
and the paper black and blue.
II
I am 17, having just discovered I love poetry.
Not surprising, because the music of the language
had long ago been inscribed in my memory those lovely, long afternoons
when my mother (OBM) read to me from ”A Child’s Garden of Verses.”
The famous poet Louise Bogan was teaching
a summer course at Columbia University, just a short bus ride
from home, and I was determined to go.
My father, checking the catalogue, gave his permission
on the condition that I also take the course in calculus.
I did attend one class but the chalk scraping the numbers on the board
so assaulted my brain, and the pain was so acute I had to leave.
Truth be told, the poetry course was way over my head
but I enjoyed sitting among those who loved what I loved,
even though I didn’t understand a word.
III
I am 22 holding my precious first born, my beautiful son.
I am oblivious of the puffy eyes and bruises, and all the signs
It was not an easy trip, for either of us making his way
through the birth canal into this world.
But I am counting the miracle of his ten perfect tiny fingers
And ten equally perfect tiny toes, and I am beyond euphoric.
IV
We are on a beach in Maine and my children are playing in the water,
while I sit on a blanket on the sand nervously keeping track of them.
I know too well which one is cautious, which one is a daredevil,
which one will try to keep up, afraid to be left behind,
which one won’t leave the water even if we’ve all left to go home,
and which one will run back to me with kisses to make sure I haven’t gone.
Suddenly, I am counting, and one is unaccounted for.
My heart and my stomach have reversed and I am standing,
shading my eyes against the sun, distraught and crazed.
The world has become an ominous, impersonal place
and there is no guardian angel here or anywhere,
until I see her jumping up and down in her pink bathing suit
brandishing a fist full of shells.
V
These days when I think about numbers, about how
they are a distinctly human invention,
how they are the language of time,
(not always a friend of mine)—
how numbers and time go hand in hand,
always neatly in sync traversing the numbers on a clock,
and how we must be vigilant
against using them to define who we are
branding human beings and living creatures,
instead of using names.
VI
Conceivably and blessedly, we never run out of words
but when we run out of numbers,
to explain what is beyond us,
we resort to infinity.
— Roberta Chester
***
QUESTIONS
What are the tales through numbers told
That other species cannot hear?
The moon says ”Twelve,” the sun says ”One”;
Such knowledge breeds both hope and fear.
Stars say, ”The infinite—behold!”
Zero has secrets no mortal knows.
Between, what instruments can measure
The painful speeds at which time flows?
The body’s symmetry says ”Two”;
The symmetry of the soul says ”Four”;
The right, the left—two matching halves;
The mandala—the longed-for door?
Or are two and four still incomplete?
Add one to make the sacred seven—
A day beyond the pains of time,
An earthly or transcendent heaven.
—Henry Summerfield
***
CHALLENGED
In school I learnt biology
history and geography
and Shakespeare’s and Milton’s poetry
but not geometry or trigonometry
’cause I am challenged mathematically.
I’m glad to learn linguistics
or take a class in semantics
and another in stylistics
but I’ll never learn statistics
’cause I am challenged mathematically.
I need math for physics and chemistry
and statistics for anthropology
sociology or psychology
so I studied literature and philosophy
’cause I am challenged mathematically.
Still, I can photograph in morning’s light
allow my imagination to take flight
or dance with my man all through the night
or take my notebook and sit down to write
although I’m challenged mathematically.
—Ruth Fogelman
***
HANDOUTS
One for the serious boy at the border, who polishes my windows and the
mirrors too, even though they aren’t dirty.
Three for el aduano, who places my papers on the table between us and says,
”Pay me what you can afford.”
One for the woman with the brilliant shawl and the tiny feet and the baby
like a monkey on her neck, who cuts me off and keeps me in her eye until I
give.
Another for her partner—same colors, slung baby, same fierce eyes—who
appears like a wasp out of nowhere the instant I do.
One for the legless dwarf positioned by the bakery, his palm crooked like a
claw, mouth twisted, eyes yellow
except for two small points which might or might not see me, because he is
perfect.
One for the grocery boy who doesn’t expect it.
One each for the kids doing body twists and flips on the safety bars of the
Metro, because I am entertained.
(The americano said you can tell which panhandlers are real and which ones
in a racket, if you inspect the gums between their teeth. He grinned broadly
to show me what he meant.)
None for the crones who squat by the holy water in the vestibules, fingers
spread on their laps, squinting out with eyes of God—I don’t owe them
anything.
None for the man with a face like a pillow who limps down the bus aisle
handing out his card, ”I am a deaf-mute, without work, please help,”and then
collects on the way back out—too smooth.
None for the children rattling their little red and green boxes, droning
chicletas, chicletas, nor for the ones who swarm over the hood at the PeMex,
smearing the dirt on the windows with their dirty rags, nor for those who
are too small to do anything but laugh and chant money! money!—because there
are too many.
—Rick Kempa
***
ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR
Grade point average,
postage stamp price,
tax percentage,
clothing size,
calendar date,
birthday.......
Numbers affect us
Time has no addition
only subtraction. Gift
of moments has a
ticking clock.
Biblical Book of
Numbers confirms
G-d is not vengeful
as we move through
allotted years. Seven
creation days. Forty
days and nights of
flooding. Etched
in granite are birth
and death dates.
Have I made mine
count?
—Lois Greene Stone
***
THREE POEMS
seven times 7
7 is our number of birth years apart
7 years ago today we first met
7 years later i’m his age then
7 months we carried on june
7th is the last time he phoned
7 hours between our time zones i
42 wept / 6 months ago he slept…
@ age 49.
numbers
the series keeps appearing
i would think to go to a shrink
if not for the book of Numbers,
your love for figures, and
friends who say pay attention,
i would be wedged
threading mismatched patchwork
instead of simply sewing patterns.
unlimited (re)Source
i continue to encounter copper
and i’m usually thinking
of you when i do so
i don’t bypass it anymore
because i have found
that a penny on any
street carries more
value than any dollar
on wall street
and there’s no common
denominator between
the two since one is
a greedy gamble and
the other a price-
less metaphor for
promises with-
out stock (or for) exchange.
—Adrienne N. Wartts
The story: When I was a child, I used to hear family members energetically
talk about visitations from deceased loved ones. I thought they were simply
missing them, until lovely things began to occur after someone I loved
departed his earthly life. Because they continued to occur, I had to
question, explore, and/or respond to them. Poems were the way for me to do
so.
A wakeup call occurred on 3/18 , a series of numbers that keeps appearing.
The book of Proverbs was a favorite of his, so my poem ”Proverbs 3:18” was
born. [See p. 17 — Ed.] In grieving his death, I noticed the occurrence of
sevens, and wrote ”seven times 7.” The poem ”unlimited (re)Source” is based
on my encounters with coins, and reminds me of the underlying meaning of the
Biblical story ”The Parable of the Lost Coin.”
***
THUS
It promised to be just another day
until you pointed out the date. I had
not noticed any numbers on display
before that stunning moment. Mindless glad-
ness to be still alive then morphed into
ambivalence about inhabiting
a world in which a man as kind as you
offends me simply by remembering.
From now on, please do not assume you know
the reason for my mood, the method of
my managing what happened years ago,
the compromises I have made for love.
Let us proceed—apologetically—
toward all awaiting either you or me.
—Jane Blanchard
***
—Connie S. Tettenborn
***
SEVENTEEN HANDBREADTHS
Eruvin 76
Are sufficient to circumscribe
a square which is four
by four, and murky
as twilight shadowed
by a Socratic circle.
One question leads to another,
a tunnel burrowing into the marrow
of an elusive truth rabbis of yore
fathomed with fuzzy mathematics:
The distance from the center
of the square to its corners
is greater than the distance
from the center to each side.
We, latecomers to the calculus
of community, benefit
from the sages’ struggle
with time and place, build
our homes upon soil solid
because ancients measured it
step by soul-straining step.
—Vera Schwarcz
***
14 WORDS IN SEARCH OF A TITLE
Swirling sea spindles:
a threshold of time, life’s a crippled staircase,
whirligig to death.
— Vincent J. Tomeo
***
FOURTEEN*
Malchut she’b’gvurah
The king of restraint
Royal boundaries
Only a king can push forward
Enlarge and reshape
as amoebic creations
And only a king knows
When to stop —
On the fourteenth day.
—Mindy Aber Barad Golembo
[Note: this poem refers to the counting of the omer, which takes place in
the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. During this time some meditate on
the Sefirot, whereby a combination of two Sefirot is associated with each
day. Rabbi Simon Jacobson gives an introduction to this practice at https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/277116/jewish/Introduction.htm]
***
THREE SONNETS
THE TWELFTH DIMENSION
There, in the twelfth dimension, have numbers burst,
have all equations lost their meaning? There,
in the twelfth dimension, is space-time the here
and now and nothing more than that, as first
becomes the last? And there, have protons cursed
electrons for turning into string? Where
may particles of gravity repair
a universe that is de-universed?
There, in the twelfth dimension, can shadows find
something besides gray matter, something more
significant than mass and energy,
like light — the light we never saw behind
the two dimensions of an unseen door.
There, in the twelfth dimension, will truth be free?
THE FIRST DAY OF THE SEVENTH MONTH
”And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a
sacred convocation; you shall do no manner of servile work; it is a day when
the shofar is blown.” (Numbers 29:1)
The play will soon begin — eleven, ten,
Nine, eight, seven, six — soon the chatter dies,
Quite soon you’ll stand upon the stage, all eyes
On you alone. You read the script again
In hope you won’t forget its wording when
The spotlight shines — five, four — it is unwise
To worry, but your costume can’t disguise
Your trembling, so you say a prayer, amen.
A shofar blows. The curtains rise. Within
The confines of a narrow stage, you go
To say your lines the best you can. The sun
And moon, the day, the night, are actors in
The drama of your life — three, two — you know
You stand before an Audience of One.
THE NEW ARITHMETIC
Behind an unseen door, you calculate,
subtract and add your shadows’ numbers: two
plus one is sometimes less than three as you
relearn addition and subtraction — eight
plus four is sometimes more than twelve, what’s straight
is sometimes circular, and what you knew
before is now irrelevant, since few
is sometimes many, little — sometimes great.
You have discovered seven minus six
is sometimes less than one, that nine plus three
is sometimes more than twelve, that four times four
is sometimes seventeen. Arithmetic’s
new axioms enable you to see
how more is sometimes less, and less is more.
—Yakov Azriel
***
THE NUMBER FOURTEEN
Like everyone I had two grandmothers.
Mine were both 14’s.
My maternal grandmother was born on February 14th.
My paternal grandmother was born on July 14th.
And their characters matched their birthdays.
My maternal grandmother’s middle name was Valentine.
She was a loving couple’s only daughter.
She had seven suitors.
Her oval-framed photograph hung in my mother’s room.
Features perfect as a doll’s
yet full of spirit and sweetness.
I hope I have made one verse
with a lilt like the tilt of her head.
My paternal grandmother’s name was Jessie.
Her features were regular but she was thin.
When I knew her she looked like an urban version
of the woman in American Gothic.
She’d had three sons and wanted a daughter
and I was her first granddaughter.
She had a way of taking you along
with whatever she was doing
while conveying that whatever she did
was very important.
She was the first person to survive to old age
with Addison’s disease.
She took protein at dinner
and gave herself shots.
Before she married she studied piano in Germany
and met someone her father would not let her marry
and was discontented ever afterward.
You might say she was a battle-axe.
My mother says that whenever I was around her
after awhile I would start to sound like her.
An astrologer once told me
”Your Venus is in Libra
and your Ares is in Mars.
That means whatever you love you really love
and whatever you hate you really hate.”
I write a lot of poems with fourteen lines.
I write a lot at the full moon.
When I was young I spent long hours looking in the mirror
hoping my Valentine’s Day grandmother’s face would show up there
though it never did
but it was on my Bastille Day grandmother’s birthday
after a phony hearing up in northern Wisconsin
that I sang this fourteen-stanza song of freedom.
THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY
All in the dewy morning
On the fourteenth of July
I went to walk beneath the trees
That grow so green and high.
And there I met Tom Jefferson,
He was pacing up and down,
His head was sunk upon his chest,
His face it wore a frown.
”What is the matter, sir,” I said,
”Or what is it you seek?”
”I’m looking for the people
With whom I wish to speak.”
”What do you mean,” I cried in fear,
”I see them all around.”
”I see their bodies just like you,
But their spirits are not found.
”They do not hear, they do not see,
They walk with empty eyes.”
”I guess you mean the media
That have got them hypnotized.
”Their ears are filled with crashing sound,
Their eyes with flashing lights,
Their minds too full of greed and gore
To sort out truth from lies.
”They have no time to meet and talk
And hear the liberty bell —
It is as if some evil king
Had bound them in a spell.”
”Climb up, climb up into that tower,
”And ring that bell once more.”
”That bell has got a crack,” I replied,
The sound would not go o’er.”
”Then you must forge it new,” he said,
”In the flame of your desire,
Until they come together
To hear what freedom requires.
”Tell them to keep the Sabbath,
A day when all are free:
That day they must not buy nor sell
Nor sit and watch TV.
”It is a day to meet and talk
And find the ones they trust
To keep their hands from bribery
And on wisdom to insist.
”And these in turn together
Will meet in council high
To write a Constitution
For the coming century.
”For everything wears out at last
And needs to be renewed
Out of the ancient spirit
Of truth and rectitude.
”That spirit has a mighty power,
Although the odds be high;
Will you go and tell the people?”
I said that I would try.
One more note on the number 14: Unique among poetic forms, the sonnet has a
mysterious attraction. Sonnets have been written to the sonnet; you can find
a whole collection of them here http://www.sonnets.org/about.htm/ I too have
tossed my tributes on the heap; one of them ends:
Yet in the form itself there still abides
A kind of centering virtue that gives hope,
As if the world in its enormity
Is but the aura of a soul; the sides
Of all contention balance round a shape
That cannot change, nor forfeit dignity.
What could account for this quality? Some years ago I noticed that the
digits of 248 (the number of positive commandments in the Torah) 365 (the
number of negative commandments) both add to 14! It is said that the source
of all the commandments is the tselem elokim, the Divine image in man.
It is true that frivolous, scurrilous and vapid poems have been written in
sonnet form. Still, over the centuries poets have kept coming back to it
when they needed to express what mattered most.
—Esther Cameron
***
SUMMING UP LIFE
A teacher of mathematics
Finds it easy to sum up his life
Multiplying the joys of marriage
By the division of responsibility
Adding the equal distribution of love
Subtracting the occasional sorrows
Presenting his achievements
From his own angle
And proving conclusively
That in total it was all worthwhile,
Quod erat demonstrandum.
— Rumi Morkin
***
SICK OF NUMBERS
As the numbers graph higher,
the virus seems to veer closer,
to me and my loved ones. The numbers loom.
Just as gas prices gauge one’s well-being,
as bargains determine one’s consumer astuteness,
numbers measure one’s fear, inadequately.
”Number of deaths,” to remove oneself
from embodying the suffering of those
actually dying and dead, loved ones sorrowing.
Numbers to prove one’s point and disprove another’s.
Tossed about to mask one’s fear, and mock the fear of others.
To distance one socially, mentally, spiritually, from those
who discomfit with their numbers, and their politics.
Numbers to normalize.
To guide us through the illusions and delusions,
to that happy place, that doesn’t quite feel all that.
Sterile, neutralized. Numbers, with the emphasis on numb.
—Ivars Balkits
***
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
What can you do when you don’t understand?
And the numbers keep coming your way.
What can you do when you’re going to fail?
Probability and Statistics that day.
What can you do when your head not in the game?
No matter what the professors will say.
What can you do when there is no place to hide?
And you can’t run away.
What can you do when your life is a mess?
Wife and children have all run away.
What can you do when you came un-prepared?
On an NSF grant from the government with pay.
What can you do all alone in your thoughts?
Too proud to ask for God’s help when you pray.
What can you do when you no longer belong?
With those who understand, so they say.
—George W. Clever
***
JUST ONE
I have heard my entire life
of the ”six million,”
two laden words bandied about
seared irrevocably in historical memory
a concept too big to imagine, to capture, to grasp
But it all becomes tangible
if I focus on just one soul,
my sweet grandmother
my namesake
who gave me her high cheekbones
who had five sons and was brave and strong
who left a family who would have adored her
with sixteen grandchildren, twenty-nine great grandchildren
and many many great great grandchildren
She was transported from Terezen to Auschwitz
on May 15, 1944
which we know because
the Germans kept such good records
Could it have been a fine spring day
with the sky audaciously blue
and birds chirping innocently
on the way to hell
or more likely, I believe in my heart
the birds were silent witness
And sometimes I ponder
if by the grace of God
could she have perchance
in her final minutes
seen a vision parading in front of her…
of her amazing progeny
leading Jewish lives, raising Jewish children,
the lawyers, teachers, educators, business folk,
doctors, nurses, scientists, computer guys, Jewish community leaders,
musicians, chefs, writers,
just to name a few,
then perhaps,
I would like to believe,
she closed her eyes
and went in peace…
— Joanne Jagoda
***
SIXES
Six decades passed
to this day. To me
it is daily wonder
that we have our state.
For us who remember
that six million,
six decades and
we are six million
in the land.
They are convenient
as justification, yes,
but those six million
did not create Israel.
It is easy to hang
the state’s being on
six million hooks. But
the vision did not come
from Treblinka or from
Dachau. Though those
and their hellish likes,
proved the thesis right.
We have none but
this land, this history.
They killed six million
but we are sovereign.
What a sweet word,
sovereign.
At least
our mess is our own,
and we live...
— Michael E. Stone
*On the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Israel.
***
[Note: in former times, ”numbers” could also mean ”poetry”!]
***
FIERCE FRAGILITY
I do not think I want a Pulitzer
in poetry. Been reading Berryman
and found out how he died. Which means there were
at least four who—did what I never can.
Why is it such a dangerous award?—
that’s notwithstanding that Sylvia Plath
got hers posthumously, and is adored.
But whether three or four.... Well, do the math:
The Pulitzer award for poetry
only began in 1922:
the rate is ghastly. No causality?
Perhaps not. But the correlation’s true.
What fragile fierceness, focussed, formed, once soared—
then crashed. Four times. (Don’t tell me there were five,
nor nominate me for the damned award.
I’d rather be fierce, fragile, and alive.)
—James B. Nicola
***
FOR SYLVIA PLATH
Ars Longa Vita Brevis Est
The poem lashes more fiercely than the wind,
Wallace Stevens, ”Man and Bottle”
But poets, artists, make a slit in the umbrella,
they tear open the firmament itself, to let in
a bit of free and windy chaos. . . .
Deleuze and Guattari, What is Philosophy
Child of innocence in children’s way,
A house of rooms and voices, sunlight
And shadow, slow making of
a mind.
Young woman within and without
Routine rites of passage,
Proper words but underneath
Slow build of language unappraised
Unspoken, flames of more
Than customary fire.
And still the search in pages
Of both life and art for answers
To such power in the text,
Pain shaping rhythms
Hardened, axe strong against
Whatever soothing legato
Ready at hand.
What then of life and art,
How do they mate if so.
Twined, untwined, uneasy
Siblings caught in a push and
Pull now near now distant,
Mysterium cradled in a
Sylvia’s blood,
No answer seeming sufficient
To such agon of pen and
Ravaged feelings.
As leering from an
Always shadow the
Indifferent maw of death,
Its earthern sty
Of muck and stench,
Flesh eater failing
Where the
Poetry lives.
—Doug Bolling
***
A DRINK OF WATER (A Journey through Icons)
I thought I was so smart
I never slept
Listened from the top of the stairs
Chronologically barely two
I loved adult conversations
At night
Danny Kay
The first of the many
Late night comedians
His haunting background music
I cannot blame Milton Schafer
For sleepless nights
Any more than I can blame Kay
I understood every word
They laughed at me
Yes, I agreed that I
would be grown up at five
nuances intonations
the music itself
so melancholy
why was that man whining?
Did I or did I not
Love the new baby
Not yet born
Belittled my childhood
A drink of water
The Shout — NOW!
Terrified
Scolded
I was sent up to bed
Defeated
alone
Tears on the carpeted steps
Then there was
Allan Sherman
Less threatening
I’d survived the Bay of Pigs
Knew all about ”quarantine”
And I was an experienced camper
Who managed to fall asleep
now and then
Ben Shawn thrilled to
Our ability to read Hebrew
He drew us an Aleph -Bet
With Japanese brush
After my brother and I
Destroyed his rock garden
Guilty
I put a thumb print in a still-wet David Manzur
painting
It yet hangs
Somewhere in the family
Here’s Johnny!
I tried to learn to play golf
I didn’t understand his jokes
And why was he on so late at night?
Robert Berks’ statue of Brandeis?
On the university campus?
I saw its metal kishkas!
Frankenstein in the studio
His daughter climbed trees almost as well as me
If I told you the name of the religious couple
Who went to see a live performance of Hair
Nudity and all
I’d have to kill us both
Not just name-dropping
I said how do you do
to any number of artists, politicians, authors
stepped on their feet
spilled coffee
I was up very late
Why am I the only one in the movie theater
Who cracks up
When Rodney Dangerfield
Screams I love you
Having heard Dylan Thomas’ poem?
A millennium later
I recognize the voice of T.S. Eliot
On a disc, reading
As someone from my childhood
And I rage against
—Mindy Aber Barad Golembo
***
ALMOST
”Stop!” the body screams
to the soul
escaping
on the dazzling
borderline
between two worlds.
”Stop, wait.
My God, at last.
Look, here’s where poetry comes from!”
Fingers—
twitching for the ballpoint—
growing cold.
Becoming not mine.
—Constance Rowell Mastores
***
VISIT TO THE CARDIOLOGIST
Paired atrial or ventricular beats are called couplets
www.womensheart.org
Such tests may elicit
relief or fear
but on this visit
I almost cheer.
Couplets? as poet I write masses,
As professor their art
I impart to my classes.
Couplets in my heart?
Forget about that abab rhyming
Let’s hear it instead for this new chiming
Marvell, Dryden, Pope, step aside for me:
My couplet credentials? read my EKG.
—Heather Dubrow
***
THE TRANSLATOR ON TRANSLATING
It was a morning in early summer: A silver haze shimmered and trembled over
the lime trees . . . I climbed a tree stump and felt suddenly immersed in
Itness. I did not call it by that name. I had no need for words. It and I
were one.
—Bernard Berenson
As much as many of these renderings
flow, each has its own
challenges, their specific adaptation; each
one poses an intrinsic set of
particular difficulties in their interpretation.
It is similar to climbing a rise
to a break in the woods, and you’re always
surprised when you crest
the overlook to see the view of open sky.
As in a poem by Soen,
from the Japanese: ”A decade spent seeking
for it deep in the forest, but only
today I can hear enormous laughter
echoing along the shore of the lake.”
—Wally Swist
***
[untitled]
Weaves letters and places them close together
Like threads of tsitsit
Connecting heaven and earth
And from the letters flow words
And from the words poetry is formed
And from poetry angels are born
And between blue and white
A ladder is set up
Angels ascend and descend
And on the firmament a song of ascents
And on earth combinations of letters
—Shmuel Warhaftig
tr. Esther Cameron