There’s a beauty to our numbers
that I note with admiration:
the shape of cipher 6
and its curving, crescent close;
8, with its weaving, double loop
that skaters strive and scratch to mimic ;
3, and its ability to complete,
to divide as trilogy, to manifest
as Trinity ;
1 which finds the wholeness
in itself, never wishing to flee
its core or essence,
for the sake of multiplying:
One times one times one
will always equal one.
2 is the sum of love
and the most romantic of all
our digits,
and in terms of teaching math,
it gives a break to all our children:
Two times two is four,
and the answer’s the same
when adding.
7 is Biblical,
the week for God’s creation,
the length of telling tales
of Harry Potter,
of Narnia,
the complement of 12 .
5, the Books of Moses,
the fingers and thumb
on our hands,
giving us ability,
the gift of grasp
and molding , making shapes
from slabs of clay.
4, a pair of couplets,
the voice of poems
and song , the rhythm
and march of the saints.
Yet when I come to number 9,
my spirit starts to sink:
it has such lofty expectations,
aspiring to reach new levels,
only to fall so painfully short—
missing the mark of 10
by just a meagre, single stroke;
always being known for
“almost there,”
remembered for the glory
it could have gained
but never got,
its cousins—
19, 49, 69—
bearing the brunt
of all its failings.
99 is but a stepping stone,
a grating lapse towards 100,
a number we only watch while it rolls,
a humble countdown to celebration,
unable to give us merit on its own.
I spent all of ’99
yearning for 2000,
anticipating a new millennium:
the fears, excitement
we thought awaited us
in a dawning, changing world,
never enjoying the year for what it was,
practicing the writing
of an exotic date—
January 1, 2000
and eager to see
the masthead of that early morning paper,
ridding myself of the nines
that only accentuate defeat,
thinking I’ll pass some kind of threshold,
a singing, flowered archway
bidding come, enter,
leave what troubles you
behind.
©Andreas Gripp
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