Checkmate
Just the two of us, thrashing about in the thicket of
prime and composite numbers when my friend says;
Grandpa, how large is Infinity ?
I can tell he is serious so I need to be careful. I take pains
to use words such as unfathomable, incomprehensible
with a concluding flourish about the limitations of
mere mortal minds.
My tutorial is greeted with profound silence and a tinge of
bemused disappointment -- not what I had expected.
Resuming our toil in the tangled vineyard of composite
and prime numbers, my friend gives it one more try,
this time affecting a conspiratorial whisper,
OK Grandpa, what’s the number that comes just before
Infinity ?
Lynn P. Elwell is a retired research scientist and teacher. He has had poems published in over a dozen literary journals including: Poem, Blue Unicorn, the Oyez Review, Passages North, Ship of Fools, and the Homestead Review.
Just the two of us, thrashing about in the thicket of
prime and composite numbers when my friend says;
Grandpa, how large is Infinity ?
I can tell he is serious so I need to be careful. I take pains
to use words such as unfathomable, incomprehensible
with a concluding flourish about the limitations of
mere mortal minds.
My tutorial is greeted with profound silence and a tinge of
bemused disappointment -- not what I had expected.
Resuming our toil in the tangled vineyard of composite
and prime numbers, my friend gives it one more try,
this time affecting a conspiratorial whisper,
OK Grandpa, what’s the number that comes just before
Infinity ?
Lynn P. Elwell is a retired research scientist and teacher. He has had poems published in over a dozen literary journals including: Poem, Blue Unicorn, the Oyez Review, Passages North, Ship of Fools, and the Homestead Review.