A KIND OF BEAUTY

For Frank Reid

With limpid blue eyes, like the Shannon,
A temperament mild as a breeze
And a future in fluid dynamics,
He taught high school maths with great ease.

When squalls of his disengaged students
Would rail and storm without grace:
“What use will this be in the real world?”
A smile rippled over his face.

Few found much enchantment in figures –
Their beauty and truth unadored –
Perfection of letters and numbers
Scrawled over each inch of the board:

An anchor for every lost sailor,
Direction beneath the vast stars,
A firm base to build a new house on
Or plan a brave voyage to Mars.

But he taught much more than equations,
For knowing that darkness would come
In the chase for an answer to problems
He gave us a French rule of thumb:

“Allez en avant,” the directive,
“et la foi vous viendra,” it ends —
For faith does not sail in the morning,
But leaves dock when darkness descends.

When water is turbid and treacherous,
Or the ebb of the river runs dry,
Or a sail breaks and engines fall quiet,
Or the mist takes that edge from your eye.

The spirit of truth and of beauty
That led you so far from the shore
To dwell on the edge of creation
Will carry you far – to be sure.

I don’t blame the calculus questions
For drifting away in maths class;
Derivatives gave way to music –
I’m not sure I managed a pass.

But “Allez en avant” never left me,
“et la foi vous viendra.” Take heart:
For each fruitless effort or ending
Brings us right back here, where we start.

This is an earlier draft of the villanelle “On first learning calculus” that I subsequently wrote and published in dedication to my former high school maths teacher Frank Reid and John Le Rond d’Alembert. In this version, the Irish background and interest in fluid dynamics bear greater weight. I rediscovered this last night, in this fortnight following Frank’s death.