THE GOLDEN RATIO

    THE GOLDEN RATIO

When the magic moment comes, 

we want to call it peace, harmony, balance, self-realization,

but we refrain because we know the best things,

unlike bread and butter, can’t be named

since definitions reduce to finitude, 

dancing on the surface as they tend to rub out reality.

But mind in elevation must fumble

at words in its invitation to fusion,

and so we settle for the mystic phrase

“the golden ratio,” something we share

with flights of falcons, branches of leaves,

the shape of shells, the spiral of galaxies—

some call it the divine proportion. 

Euclid was the first to find it,

but for him it was only a number.

        March 30, 2003