The poem above is my very first long division poem, composed around 1990. It’s on display here as an example of how complex a seemingly simple poem can be. According to the rules of long division, the poem says, on the surface, that spring divided by woods equals rain, with a remainder of robins. It further states that woods multiplied by rain equals green, and that robins added to green also equals spring. A set of rather simplistic metaphors, in other words. But is it? Certainly the idea of green as a near-simile for spring is about as banal as can be. As is the idea that rain is its cause. But the rain is not merely added to the woods it affects, it multiplies them. For me, this is a terrific metaphor, or was when I first used it. Multiplication. It’s so much more than addition. I, at any rate, get a sense of individual raindrops intricately interacting with limbs, and expanding the woods, not just lying on them.
More important, as one verbally experiences of Nature as rain, woods, greenery and robins–sensual and organic, careless and carefree, the poem’s structure should make one increasingly aware of the eternal mathematics underlying everything . . .