[Newspoetry] haiku geometrical

[Donald L Emerick]

Much that clots wisdom
Geometry soon dislodges
In simple figures.

Two interesting kinds of comparison -- for making a difference -
- that we find in plane Geometry concern the distinct 
properties of length and of orientation (relative location or 
situatedness).  Thus, the circle and the triangle stand as 
figures.  The circle is the set of points equidistant from a 
given point while the triangle is that set that is equidistant 
from a given pair of points.  Curiously, the triangles, en 
masse, become a collection of points we call the ellipse.  An 
ellipse resembles a circle, somewhat squashed out, as if its 
nuclear point had (quite impossibly) bifurcated.

To prove one triangle is like another is one kind of proof 
strategy that looks at proportions, and at how they may be 
established.  However, if some element of the established 
proportionality falls into the degenerate, trivial case of 
being an equality, then the resemblance property shifts from 
being a mere similarity into the degenerate case of being a 
trivial congruence: two things appear to be examples of one 
another, exactly, so far as the (f)laws of (optical) identity 
appear concerned.

But, enough about this.  I make a note -- for future thinking, 
sharing its eddy with any caught in its drop.  A poet is a 
Pythagorean when he obeys forms and when he disregards forms -- 
but not when he is ignorant of the figures with which he is 
working.