date
Five fives, five five, five fives,
And squares to pairs to squares,
What mundane joy meandering,
What simple man I am,
In moments when simplicity,
Is wholly silly smiles towards the date.
What joy it is of happenstance:
An unforced sum has come,
And so it was one hundred years,
Since last this date was loved,
And so it be one hundred years,
Till it shall come in sum.
The sum to year for those to hear,
Two tens a-twenty, twenty twenty,
Five upon the millipedes.
Of these long ages spent in strange fashions,
In gorgeous dreams of sullen clouds linger,
On fields in fleeted seasons myriad,
In 'mail, and robes, and suits and then to falsest weaves of each,
In helms, and hoods, and hats and then to countless scores of each.
Squaring off the sides,
With measure and restraint,
A little here a little there,
Leaves a dating quaint.
It must be said I couldn't resist,
It must be said I couldn't resist,
More than this to doubly say,
To speak twice twice without delay,
The day is calling out twice twice,
And this response will so suffice:
twenty five twenty five
Our numerical nomenclature,
Our open love letter to reason,
A muse, a confidante, a precious gift,
The infinite and divine thread through,
The simple, mundane, and immediate,
Lofty geometry and imminent counts,
The squares that dance within our sight,
Tickle at the foretaste of perfection,
And draw upon a silly smile: five five -
The perfection between the hands.
Sum to perfect square,
Laid bare to great attack,
My seigeworks and grand escalade,
Up to the mount of time and back,
To crown it with a silly sum, of course!
How could I pass a day of halves,
Double dozen pruning garden paths,
Announcing loud a score and four,
Which rises to the crowds encore:
Dozen dozen twenty four,
Dozen dozen twenty four.
The date clicks into an awaited sum,
Stacking days across the gaps of months,
Like bridges over chasms of sand,
Folding dunes until they, unsettled,
Play their cavities like the gaping mouths of violins,
Bowing out the gargantuan cries of time,
Until the spans of peaks are reduced to meager nullity:
The desert laid flat.
An orderly date marks an orderly day,
Of shifting now my digital scribbles,
Playing the archivalist-
I brush away the crumbs,
Of yesteryear into the cabinets far away.
A podium in eights,
Dressed in pretty metal,
Wipe off all dusty slates,
Scratch out pretty petals,
For now the date is special.
An asymmetric day,
Upon a date symmetric,
5 meters in a length of road,
A quiet place near somewhere loud,
Away! Away to the city on a hill,
Away to find peace and praise,
Amidst a boiling city filled with sound,
To light in the dark place.
Podium in tens descend.
To the right burnished bronze,
Like smokey fire rising in the evening,
To the left an austere silver luster,
Like fragments of light and bladesong in the air,
In the middle maddened gold,
Like dragons steeped in splendor hidden,
I became a man today.
Something of a swallowed time,
Until my belly's full and I stand tall,
At summit of my childhood climbed,
I made myself a belt of rhymes,
I've strapped up tight with all my might,
At summit of my childhood climbed.
To which podium do I stand to gain?
Was it I who swallowed time myself?
Am I a boy that walks the clock?
Or do I sit in rocking beams upon the waves?
Given time, given gifts and lines that I shall say?
These gift and lines are surely such a present...
Divine.
Three of fours,
Make way for two,
At least there's only one,
But gladly it is half of four,
A language that does dance in lines,
That makes the numbers merry acts,
That turns itself in knots to do
A magic trick in metred step,
What gift it is this language broad,
It's cry I heeded: All Aboard!
So now it's mine a gleaming sword,
Cut gems of phrase I can't afford.
Twenty one sum three,
No units fallen short,
These sure layers on layers,
Call out the hum of mountains in their depths,
A summit in line with twenty four,
They
Crash
No
More.
Now rumbled from the gates of time,
"Take heart my little days" the clock called out,
"I told you that with patience you would sprout,"
"With long-suffering firm like rockforms in the rain,"
"With rejoicing hum a deep refrain,"
"With persistence see petitions chime,"
"Like incense in the ruling halls,"
"He made you big though you were small,"
"Now dance with me all through the year,"
"This twenty four is met and overcome."
Twenty sum three,
One unit fallen short,
These leaning sticks on sticks,
Strike out a pose amongst the trees,
Just short the canopy of twenty four,
Alas
they
crash.
They tumble to the gates of time,
"Wait just once!" the clock chastised,
"You take up size like mounting cries,
It shan't be long to reach the ears of suits and ruling ties."
Nineteen sum three,
Two units fallen short,
These towering bricks on brick ,
Grind cement like gum between their layered teath,
Glaring hurried up at twenty four,
Alas
they
crash.
They tumble to the gates of time,
"Wait two breaths" the clock begun,
"You take up size like filling lungs,
It shan't be long to bear your breath on shanties sung."
Eighteen sum three,
Three units fallen short,
These rocking stones on stones,
Creak out like pestle on their leaning mortar,
Wafting spices short of twenty four,
Alas
they
crash.
They tumble to the gates of time,
"Wait three rhymes" the clock explained,
"You take up size like hills in delta plains,
It shan't be long to dance with mountains in the rain."
Seventeen sum three,
Four units fallen short,
These balanced plates on plates,
Lean loud and scrape a shrill,
Up at the height of twenty four,
Alas
they
crash.
They tumble to the gates of time,
"Wait four times" the mighty clock decreed,
"You grow like pretty flowers by the stream,
It shan't be long to stand amongst the trees!"