There were efforts to sling a steeple around a cloud,
to enclose a smoke ring in a palm,
bring a mountain to a riverbed. They failed.

Something of a Pythagorean charm is retained
for garbing oneself in white,
the precision of mathematics
performing beautifully the rites.
To refrain from bean-eating.

One who has held their hands
beating the air
for a long time
gains a kind of theorem for dignity,
despite having no solution to show.

Wrinkles reveal this was not the beginning but
a palimpsest, set over another work so old
the efforts must continue as the equation foretold.