Geometry in life

I found the compass I used to have in my geometry box

A sharp metal stick, a pencil attached

Drawing circles, the circles of my life

The Venn diagram looks like a kaleidoscope

I bought a set of colored markers

To fill in coloring books for adults-Mandalas and Star Wars

Will I color in the lines?

The ruler takes measurements

Can it measure time and love and happiness and light?

The eraser is pink, we used to call it a rubber

Until we learned you didn’t call it that, just as you did not bum a fag.

The pencil sharpener brought the nib to a fine point

I preferred the snub nosed version.

I tried to use the protractor to measure angles of my life

Pencils, erasers, pens, compass, protractor, ruler, sharpener

Instruments to give order to numbers and visuals

Trying to create a diagram of life, a blueprint, a model, a simulation

The theorems of old, Pythagoras, the Isosceles triangle

The Fibonacci sequence enthralled me

The golden ratio in nature

The hidden significance of proportionality.

Squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, rhombus, octagon

There is really no symmetry in life

Life is a hot mess

It is not a puzzle whose pieces snap together

It is a mosaic of scrambled pieces

Geometry and mathematics try to calm the disorder

Some people can draw symmetrical illustrations

Some people can materialize their calculations-the engineers, the architects

The symmetry of concentric subdivision, guided traffic grids, straight highways, national boundaries

For some people math is magic, for some it is terror, for some it is whatever

Life is still a hot mess, a tangle of wires, synapses in the brain, synapses in the world

We press down that compass, press down an order

 A structure, a model and fissures erupt

Sinkholes in life

We grip the instruments, we structure our world, we hold our breath

We try to color within the lines

We try to make sense of it all.