The Magic of Numbers

Diamonds of stars

decorating the night sky

hang on a framework

of numbers, and laws of numbers,

and physics

by the numbers.

I remember the day I discovered

that ellipses were not just badly drawn circles

but perfect expressions of formulas

made with numbers.

Now I see all life

proceeding

through the magic

of numbers.

If love is an exponential function

starting at zero

rising to infinity

then heartbreak is its inverse,

falling, but then leveling off --

not limited in its length,

but always limited in its fall.

Depression is a parabola

joined to a line --

making the line

fall to a dip

only to rise again.

My life

is mostly a sine curve --

the graph of a heartbeat --

up, then down,

never too far,

never out of control,

perpetually bumpy.

If life were a cosecant,

we would all be lost

at the asymptotes.

But life is a series of functions,

not just one --

many continuous functions,

and then the break in the line,

the limit of the rational function,

the place where life is not defined

the point called death.

Thanks to the law of numbers, I know

just past the removable point,

just past the limit,

the line resumes its journey

to infinity.

Some day,

I will travel there

and perhaps my trail in the stars

will show others

how to follow.