There are Things Much More Wonderful than Plain Mathematics

I’ve never cared for numbers

Equations or division

Deciding not to like these things

Was not a hard decision—

Why would one ever want to

Study quadratics

When there are things much

more wonderful than plain mathematics?

Take for example a hummingbird wing

Rippling with many mini muscles

under minute avian skin— what a thing!

What a thing! What a curious thing!

Mathematics could never capture this feeling.

Or if it’s more up your alley, a trumpet of brass

That can play notes high and low

I’ve heard it said that musicians are gifted

In music, where does mathematics go?

Even the very beauty

Of a warm summer’s afternoon

Is matched not by fractions,

Or formulas of any sort—

But by the world around us both,

And the feeling of being warm.