Numerical Landscape

by Eveline Pye

Like a tracker, I smell the earth
on my fingers, listen for the slightest
echo as I stare out at a world
where bell-shaped curves loom

as mountains and negative exponentials
foretell dangerous descents, imminent
disaster. All around, cliff edges crash
down to restless seas while a solitary

outlier shines in the southern sky: a freak
of random sampling or a guiding light?
Are others buried deep, confounded
by experimental design?  On my path,

a decision tree, so many branches
spring from its trunk, so many choices.