Annie Gedicks
In the Valley of Unknowns, 2006
Inspiration piece
.
In the valley of unknowns
the asking woman is queen
For her the x’s and y’s form
unsteady skeletal ladders
into the indeterminate sky
For her a green moon rises
round over the snowbanks
and two little huts like pointers
frame the decillionth place of pi
Beyond them is a night-cave
from which additive infinities
keep on fluttering like bats
At the apex of an isosceles
roof she leans forward naked
into the wind from the far side
of zero, ready to climb rung
by rung of computation, bits
input then output as her steps
self-consistent yet incomplete
solve toward an asymptote
until at some height no-one
can predict her pink body’s
counting machinery stops
Adam Cornford
Response