Providence

Awake, 1:45am,

unable to fall back down

into the Land of Nod,

thoughts mired in a

system of equations

so unbearably massive,

so unrelentingly ugly,

an admixture of

linear, quadratic

cubic and quartic

and even if the

doctor on call

would Bring radicals

along to solve out

some of this

quintic-level

bullshit, yet

Abel and Ruffini

were correct after all.

 

A finite number of

additions, subtractions,

multiplications, divisions

and root extractions

won’t ease his mind,

won’t ease him back into

the Land of Nod.

 

There are trigonometric,

exponential, logarithmic,

radical, rational, single-

variable, double-variable,

triple-variable terms

within his busted noggin,

the kind that would tax

psychoanalysts and

theologians to their

inevitable, inexorable

breaking points,

melting points.

 

Of course, the focus

of his parabolic life

is upward, close by

leading him down to

his local minimum,

his absolute minimum,

his absolute zero,

a place so cold that

he can’t move it at all.

 

Or maybe the

reverse case is true,

that the focus is downward

close by and leading him

on a reflective parabolic

path where passed the

local maximum point and

it’s just a simple slide

downward into oblivion.

 

Either way,

Maynard James Keenan

will probably want

royalties for this piece

if it was ever put to

music, because the

subject matter is

akin to one of

his best songs.

 

And the

Hermetic maxim,

invented by, or

rather rediscovered

by Crowley, the one

about the laws above

mirroring the laws

below, is useful here

because the focus

has a unique ally

called a directrix,

a line such that

all points defined

in this parabolic life

are equidistant from

the focus above or

the reflected focus

below at any time.

 

Like the divinity

and adversity

colluding with

and colliding with

the life of Job,

the one from the

Land of Uz who

lost three daughters.

 

Like the one who

lost three sons

should be in

the Land of Nod,

sleeping, resting,

trying to put

his busted mind

at ease.

 

The system of

equations within

his intellect

may never be

rightly solved

down to simplest

terms where

the coordinates

come out as some

kind of up-remedy.

 

And so he peruses the

forty-second chapter of

Job, hermetically sealed

as both the final chapter

and the ultimate answer,

and he sees the moral

that faithful adherence

to the divinity in times

of adversity will

to brighter, happier

things afterward.

 

And Douglas Adams

may have been right

after all, the ultimate

question is “what is

six times nine” and

the answer is forty-two

in base thirteen, which

is the bad luck number

in the common mindset.

 

Kismet, anybody, or

rather divine hand

at work?

 

Maybe Providence isn’t

just the capital of

Rhode Island anymore.

Author's Note

Yes, the diagnosis is in.

Reviews

[An owl on the moon]

A philosophical dance across the mind... time and divine interventions moving in and out of the sphere of our existence. Profoundly moving.