And Why Did Ash Street Not Burn?

If it means, we make it mean.
We’re the things that make things mean,
Things that did not mean to mean,

Like the fires the wind blew through
These towns, burned all in a day,
But hop-scotched, one church but not

The next, not the pub next door,
Some of the graves but not all,
These stores but not those or those,

These homes poor, but not those rich,
These homes rich, but not those poor.
We clean up, take stock, and mourn,

And try to say what it means.
In just a few days we start
To think, hey, this makes no sense

And we swap dark plots. Who did
What, was that fire planned? How could
The wind go here but not there?

We Come for the Food and the Peace and the Warmth and the Rest; We Leave When There’s Math

The waves show as the points pile,
So that what starts as sprawled dots
Turns more like a rolled tin roof

In the sun, ribs of bright waves.
Just wait. Dots group. Bright and dark.
Look too close, it’s back to dots.

I say points and dots and packs,
Like stars and names, are short-hand
For the waves we can’t quite parse.

We dream of the edge, dream jumps
From state to state. It does help
To fit the world to our tricks,

But we cede such truths to it,
The ghost that jumps from the cliff,
As if jumps were all, were it.

As good as we are at it,
Math won’t solve the world like this.
Squares, splits, and bits fit to troughs

Just so well—some gaps get past.
We should be both—proud we’ve solved
Hard things we can now guess at

And get close, so close, so close—
But, too, cowed. Close as we get,
Some chit of small change slips past.

The ones no good at math laugh,
But should such be the most sad?
How to sum up who can’t add?