That Number upon Which the Demand Lieth
Overcoming duality, yet binding: the trinity.
Beyond the contrast of two, it initiates the concept of many.
Albertus Magnus claimed that three lives in all things.
Becoming; being;
disappearing.
In Old Saxon, the month of May is named trimilki, season of three milkings.
Number as quality depends upon the visual field.
The ancient Egyptian sign for the plural requires three strokes.
Points; lines;
angles.
Lao-tzu said the triad produces all.
Acronyms, sports, and traffic lights reflect our ternary culture.
The devil may appear in the form of a three-legged hare.
Witness; testament;
tribute.
Representing the unknowable: I, you, and the beyond.
The figure of completion, the number of the cube.
A Sumerian number sequence began “man, woman, many.”
Curse; liturgy;
blessing.
The scale as a succession of thirds.
Imperfection implies the concealment of perfection.
Shiva’s number, his eyes, his braids, his place.
Root; third;
fifth.
The triangle in Euclidean space.
I walk the three roads to the commonplace, preferring rhetoric.
Three to through, it penetrates the personal, unhinges that door.
The law; the land;
the world to come.
“That Number upon Which the Demand Lieth” was published in Posit: A Journal of Literature and Art in September 2017. I am grateful to editor Susan Lewis for taking this piece.
😂😂😂😂
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Awesome 😎
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Glad you liked it. Thank you.
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Beautiful writing, thank you for sharing 🙂
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Thank you for reading!
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I really like how you have an interest in anthropology that seeps into your writing: aesthetics and education all at once. As an anthropologist with a PhD I highly approve of your intellectual questing Sir Robert: Describer of Wrens, and Anthro of Pologies! Is there anything you cannot do, Okaji Sensei?!
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I have many interests, aka distractions, and enjoy riffing on them. There are many things I cannot do, but that knowledge doesn’t stop me from trying on occasion.
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As an observer or strange and perhaps arbitrary connections myself, this one really hit home with me. Maybe that’s what we and other poets do: say that we’ve seen or set this thing next to this thing.
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I believe that’s our job, Frank. To find/assign those connections, and somehow make sense of them.
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What a superb piece.
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Thanks, Leslie. Numbers, and the language associated with them, fascinate me!
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Same here, but my brain doesn’t make connections like yours does.
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I’ve been told that I’m “not quite right.” 🙂
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And we’re the beneficiaries! Stay just as you are.
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That’s easy. I don’t know how to be different!
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superb
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Thank you!
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Very interesting and thought-provoking.
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Thanks very much.
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As a math person, I’m dying to know what you have to say about Pi? the fibonacci sequence/golden section?
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I prefer cake. 🙂 I’ve actually written a poem containing Fibonacci sequences…
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