Ode to my Brother — Dan Spier

Poetry

Some people might say that I am a rhymer rather than a poet. I have had the ability to make rhyming lines fairly easily, but I like to think that my poetry has more in it than just rhyme. I love imagery–the sights, sounds, smells, feels and movements of natural things, and I try to make my poetry very concrete and real. For some reason, funerals have been a very large part of my poetic efforts, I suppose because poems celebrate a life better than mere speech. At any rate, I have included some poetry here, and I hope you like it. As always, the subject matter is very diverse.

Here is a poem I wrote while Molly, my wife, was teaching calculus. Her students had told her that they did not understand poetry: that the subject matter was so obscure, meaningless, and irrelevant. She replied that poetry could be about anything. They rebutted by saying, “Right! I suppose you could write a poem about mathematics!” Taking the challenge, she said, “Yes, you could write a poem about math.” “Let us see one then,” they countered. Molly came home and told me the story. “Is there some way we can make a poem about math?” she queried. I said, “Well, if you will help me with the terminology, I will try.” Here is what we came up with.

TRIGONOMETRY
By Dan Spier

There is nothing in life so darn hectic
As a brain in a course trigonometric.
I had much rather study invasions
Of Vandals and Huns than equations.
And especially ones like quadratics!
They’re fit only for fools and fanatics!
While my social life sits and relaxes,
My dumb brain is a blur of Y-axes.
Even tangents and points of inflection,
Make me suffer a loss of direction.
While derivatives—both first and second,
Are a little bit more than I reckoned.
When old fractions turn inverse proportions,
My sinuses go through contortions.
My domain is as strange as an ocean,
And my slope and my range? I’ve no notion!
I think radians are tires for one’s auto,
And determinants words for one’s motto.
Logarithms sound right for percussion,
And matrices good for discussion.
But my function’s velocity’s dropping,
And I sense by acceleration stopping.
My vertex’s endpoint—it dangles,
As I’m swallowed in huge right triangles.
All my maximums minimum weakly,
As my anti-log poem ends bleakly,
I guess if one thinks perpendiculous,
Trigonometry’s not so ridiculous.

I know you think we ought to grieve,
On saying “Goodbye “ to old Steve.
But recent years have been so tough,
Finally God said, “That’s enough!”
And called him to a better life,
Where there’s no pain and little strife.
Where he can see his loving mate
And dance past every golden gate.
It’s true, Steve had his gritty side:
He made you slink away and hide!
Grace and tact he seldom used,
Your tender spots could get abused.
But then he’d cheer you up and say,
I’ll back you up on any day.
He taught me stuff you’d seldom dare
Like “It’s cool to wear no underwear!”
To pitch and catch he taught me true
To punt and pass the football too.
The mastery of those skills he’d sell But emphasized good grades as well.
A scholarship would be for me
The only way to a degree
And how to hunt the whitetail deer
And face the bullies with no fear.
He raised his four kids properly
And pampered them quite sparingly.
They grew up with a healthy thirst
To strive and win and finish first.
His grandkids loved to hunt and roam
With Grandpa at his cabin home.
He loved to plant and watch trees grow
And build warm fires and watch them glow.
No matter where he had to stay
He fed a deer herd every day
I’m sure they’re wondering what is wrong
And gazing at his window long
Their empty food box filled with rain
And empty stomachs there remain.
But we, like them, must wait our turn As we toward Heaven humbly yearn.
Farewell, my Kemo Sabe friend so true
We had a great time me and you.
Like old Tennyson said of old
About Ulysses strong and bold:
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Then as John Wayne quoted at the burial of his sailors at sea:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.