On Math And Mountains by Madison Wilcox

On Math And Mountains

by Madison Wilcox

What is the solution to the system of equations

where God is one line

and the world is another?

I think it is the top of Forester Pass in the Sierra Nevadas.

Surely this should have been the place where Jacob saw the ladder come down from heaven,

Surely also the place where Christ went up—

God is here,

here with the pikas and the skypilot

here with the old stones and the Clark’s Nutcrackers

And surely He is here with me

as I stand on the crest of the pass,

the sun reflecting my shadow back across the y-axis of the Sierra Nevadas,

and God, the great mathematician himself, standing above me

graphite pencil in hand

whispering, “Here,”

as he stencils in my shadow on the great graph of the world.