So busy today!

[brigdh]

The Invention of Fractions Jessica Goodfellow

God himself made the whole numbers: everything else
is the work of man.
—--Leopold Kronnecker

God created the whole numbers:
the first born, the seventh seal,
Ten Commandments etched in stone,
the Twelve Tribes of Israel —
Ten we've already lost —
forty days and forty nights,
Saul's ten thousand and David's ten thousand.
'Be of one heart and one mind' —
the whole numbers, the counting numbers.

It took humankind to need less than this;
to invent fractions, percentages, decimals.
Only humankind could need the concepts
of splintering and dividing,
of things lost or broken,
of settling for the part instead of the whole.

Only humankind could find the whole numbers,
infinite as they are, to be wanting;
though given a limitless supply,
we still had no way
to measure what we keep
in our many-chambered hearts.

Comments

[cellophane_ria.livejournal.com]

You know, your posts intimidate me. So I can step here and again congratulate you on your excellent taste in poetry. Would you mind if I print them all at the end of the month as a so-called anthology? I like learning new things, and most of the poets you post are unknown to me *stupid*. Or would that be just too much?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't be intimidated by me! I hate to hear that, because I am actually fairly quiet and reserved, and if I can't count on other people to come bother me and start conversations, I would never speak to anyone ever.

But feel free! I'm very glad that I've been picking poems you'd want to keep. Also, don't worry. A lot of these poets are new to me, too. I pull them out of books or websites, but rarely know anything about the poet beyond the one poem I post. Actually, if you go back and look at the comments to these posts, you will see several people telling me things that I didn't know, even though I'm the one posting these! *laughs*

[cellophane_ria.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you. I try to not be so reserved myself then:)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

And oh! That is the cutest icon ever.

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

I'm using bits of poetry in my Nano novel and I was looking for a certain poem and it didn't have the line I thought it did and I remembered you did National Poetry Month every year I think and LO YOU HAVE A POEM I CAN USE!!

Only humankind could need the concepts
of splintering and dividing,
of things lost or broken,
of settling for the part instead of the whole.

And yes I only got a few hours of sleep last night and it is 9:40pm and I am eating a brownie and drinking tea and THANK YOU!!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. I'm glad you used this one! It's one of my favorites that I posted this year.