The Art Of Numbers

by Eveline Pye

We talk of beautiful words, art, buildings
when they‘re not part of the natural world.
An x in Algebra is no more abstract than
an idea in philosophy, just more useful.

It can’t be use that makes the difference.
Keats found beauty in a Grecian urn,
surely practical at some stage of its life:
no one is blind to the beauty of symmetry.

We understand Blake’s awe of the tiger’s stripes.
Why not awe at Gaussian curves? Of course,
I know there is no great beauty in a single number,
in a four or a seven or an eight, but it’s the same

with the alphabet. Where is the wonder in a b
or a k or a t? It’s sublime combinations,
relationships between  letters
that create words and sounds we love.

Look. See the numbers shine in my eyes.