Poem on Pascal's Triangle

Nobody ever wrote a law saying a triangle
Would take responsibility for all patterns
In nature.  All coefficients are equal
Sloping into that sleepy pool of lines
Forming strings between armies of numbers
Whose connections are impossible to explain

Otherwise.  There can be no explanation
For a globe to be congruent to a triangle;
The complete population of numbers
Goaded into forming a pattern
Standing in their orderly lines
To express their binomial equality..

But, no!  These numbers expand equally
Becoming a microcosm of life, explaining
Divine mysteries as a system of lines
That converge on simplicity, the triangle
Top, a point where all nonsense patterns
Correspond to the environmental numbers.

Our mathematical universe:  every person a number
Infinitely different, yet all created equal
God was a mathematician; the intricate patterns
Defy natural logic.  The only explanation
States that creation expanded from a triangle
Of divine division; no reasons exist for lines

Like these.  Twos and threes, standing in lines
An army of power; obediently trained numbers
Marching out in their celebrated triangle
Formation.  Voices order polynomial equality
Else taken by force; without cause or explanation
Just assured knowledge that a universe without patterns

Cannot survive.  Numbers embrace a pattern:
Humans too, which is why we draw these lines
And follow mindlessly, never trying to explain
How we are ruled by the endlessness of numbers
Driven to infinity, where everybody is equal
Instead of forced into society's hierarchal triangle..

No, don't try to explain.  We all love these patterns:
Lemmings in their lines, impaling themselves on triangles.
We all want to be equal.  There is safety in numbers.


(c) Deanna Rubin 1996