This poem reflects a feeling that came upon me today several times, and though I managed to beat it back, it insisted on being what I tell about.
I had a bad time with math in high school, but I loved certain parts of it – the beautiful curves and the notion of them being generated from equations. I would grasp the concepts but fall down in the execution of problems. The same story may play itself out in other aspects of my life.
Story Problem
Here is a place of feeling lonely
a point of discontinuity
a no man’s land between the asymptotes
X marks the degenerate set
no bounding parabolic curve for me,
– ever upward, ever steeper –
no perfect circle, no elegant ellipse
no connection to the conic section
Here is a place of feeling lonely
a point of discontinuity
no connection to logic or reality
or the events of the day
Can I fall, thus
down along the asymptotes
ever approaching
never fully touched?
©Wendy Mulhern
March 24, 2011