Adam Cornford and Annie Gedicks

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