Equation

By Caroline Caddy b. 1944 Caroline Caddy

Someone said

that working through difficult equations

was like walking

in a pure and beautiful landscape –

the numbers glowing

like works of art.

And in the same crowded room

a woman I thought I didn’t like

was singing to herself –

talking and listening

but singing to herself too

and instantly

with the logic of numbers

I liked her

as if she had balanced something

I couldn’t.

The corridors are long and pristine

but I’m not lost –

just working

towards some minute

or overwhelming

equipoise.

Caroline Caddy, “Equation” text from Esperance, Fremantle Press, 2007; audio from The Tibetan Cabinet, Audio CD, River Road Press, 2010: by permission of River Road Press and the poet. Copyright © 2007, 2010 by Caroline Caddy.

Source: Esperance (Fremantle Press, 2007)

Biography

Born in Perth, poet Caroline Caddy grew up in the United States and Japan before returning to Australia as an adult. Caddy’s poems, lingering in the landscapes of China, Antarctica, and western Australia, explore identity through the process of travel and observation. Floating free of the left-hand margins, her poems make use of caesuras to emphasize the connections and gaps between cultures and geographies. “Creating a space . . .

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