Skipping to school she ponders the puzzle —
triangular fruit falling at her feet,
petals onto lids, lips, and into her ears
fragrant whispers about essence:
the integer’s power, fulcrum’s scale.
Chanting its name thrice then thrice and thrice,
she’s diamond-blue, webbed in air thick with 3s.
Saffron molecules whirl dervish-like,
implant membranes. Blood’s mirror radiates
mesmerized atoms out into the ether —
triple-braided strands encircling.
Her life’s cipher doubled to infinity.
Beyond contradiction, lies, and illusion loops the authentic.
For now, a bewildered heaven.
In the third month she was born, he in the ninth; they met
on the ninth of the twelfth. Wed in the sixth, she bore
two sons: she-note for the male trio.
Mystics foretell three brings wisdom as we climb
the sides of life’s triangle — to the tip, to oneness.
The cosmic numeral challenges:
create with what you hold and rejoice in the cryptic.
So it is told. So it is believed. Behold its form:
the female figure bearing life, a labyrinth,
eyes intuiting connection.
Thrice, ten years wash over the land. Sun moves, sky rains,
stars burn in the firmament. The moon reflects upon
strings of prayer beads in sets of thirty-three ––
Amen’s numeric peer.
Devotion to the power of three three three.
Still, at thirty-three her son dies.