Lavinia Kumar

           Amalie Emmy Noether (1882-1935)
                    Mathematician

She nurtured numbers, conserved them
as though they were hers to blossom
in a greenhouse. Young men flocked
to find her secrets, till they
found their own way to grow.

She was drawn to Math, pretty Math.
She mixed algebra a’s and b’s
with physics, to a new breed
of y’s and z’s – as meticulous,
they say, as tropical orchids.

She dreamed of shapes, colors,
atom bits, and planet whorls,
of truth kernel formulae, rings.
As these tumbled from her mouth,
they re-bred nature’s laws. And were loud.

About the author:
Lavinia Kumar’s books are The Celtic Fisherman’s Wife: A Druid Life (2017), & The Skin and Under (Word Tech, 2015). Chapbooks are Let There be Color (Lives You Touch Publications, 2016) and Rivers of Saris (Main Street Rag, 2013). Her poetry has appeared in several US and UK publications such as Atlanta Review, Colere, Dark Matter, Edison Literary Review, Exit 13, Flaneur, Kelsey Review, Lablit, New Verse News, Orbis, Peacock Journal, Pedestal, Pemmican, Poetry 24, Symmetry Pebbles, Lives You Touch, & US1 Worksheets. Her website is laviniakumar.org.