Do the math

Top of the GMT-8 morning to you. We’ve been traveling this week, mostly in Brooklyn, now on the wetcoast, with little time for sustained reflection, let alone quality alone time at a keyboard.

So, then, to postpone the ultimate state of inert social uniformity and beat back communicational disorder and chaos, at least for a time, by keeping the Hexagon streak intact (86 weeks!), here are words from somewhere else about other things.

Zola in her room on Zoom

is by far

the strongest swimmer

even when

the lights grow dimmer

up there still

on a bed blanketed in foolscap

plucking perfect fifths

of equal tension but different lengths

on an unplugged bass guitar

and seeing in the dust motes free-floating chords

clouding forth

(this is how I choose to see it)

out of nowhere in the grid

as the grid grinds

as she

half-listens

to the drone of the Glaswegian gnome

on the congruence of Pythagorean angles

and the pons asinorum

which is not the “knob-like” structure

in the center of the brainstem

that messages have to cross

any more than this is or you or I are

but the first real test

of the reader’s intelligence

and the bridge to the harder propositions

that only

the surest-footed donkey

can negotiate.

Zola in her room in the gloom on Zoom

humming the walking bass line Nick taught her on Skype just a day ago

again and again and again (and again)

unaware of the river of Heraclitus or the

sea of Hippasus

or the vestiges of the Chaos

whence all things spring

again and again and again (and again)

including the dark holes of darkness

between the brightly lit constellations

that she sees as she steps off the edge

of the spiraling helical ladder

of limbic

being

that leads to our living room

and decision making

and leftover potato salad or maybe a fried egg

willing every directed thought to tangibility

circling in infinite descent

like pi

in the starry sky

of the kitchen’s clutter

unafraid of the immeasurable

unafraid of the irrational

unafraid and untouched by the high high high

birdcalls

specks in the distance

in the midday sun

hi hi hi

the night is young

with Paul McCartney

and the Wings on Spotify

won't say bye, bye, bye,

bye, bye, bye, bye, bye

till the night has gone

Zola back in her room with the Zoom soon

measured in a new cadence as a fall in the pitch

the length of the diagonal across the

square above the eye-sockets and

the falcon’s full orbitals

per second per second

evasive action futile

no instruments

world or wasteland plunge into bone grail

and the frail crust

(on a side plate)

as feathers explode

and the beak cuts to the heart

blood spurting to spume

per second per second

vermillion droplets

falling

again and again and again

(and again) to Earth

unrounded horizonless

where the incommensurable and the

irrational

get number and dumber

where the undiscoverable limits of the

soul

co-exist with their contradictions

where the bottle’s emptiness

builds its nothingness

in pencil and chalk dust

on the wall of the cave

of human existence

where falcon and flacon fill

and the unspeakable square root of two

interminably decimates

so far back into the vestiges of the Chaos

even God runs for cover

as smaller and smaller parts are clawed

elegantly into yet-smaller parts

again and again and again

(and again)

which no ratio can express

when the falcon drops its fractioned prey

and bears down

and the falconer hums the same bar twice

puts her arms out

as if she were treading water off

Scott Bay and hums it twice again

and waits for the bird to be

in the hand

in the glove

and stopped

again and again

and again

(and again)

and stopped.

OK, well, yes. Peace. Happy holidays. Thanks for reading and for supporting Hexagon. See you here next week in Bamfield, British Columbia. Keep warm. Love one another.