Bella Takata, Senior, Guest Writer
Statisticians have told us that a sample should be representative of its entire population
and while I have no reason to believe that this room of glass flowers is an accurate reflection of every flower that ever was,
when petals turn up like fallopian tubes and bisections slope like sesame seeds ripe with life
swollen and shining just enough to avert our eyes to the ground,
this trend is too profound to ignore.
The principle understanding of anatomy is that form follows function;
approximately 1.618 function for every one form.
No give and no take.
This for yours and that for mine and
everything for us someday.
But for double-bonded oxygen and CO2
running in circles
ask as we spiral:
Why not be an infinite set of Venetian mirrors?
By this logic we are a helix around some common theme,
won and wrought over time and
toil,
one mean for our deviation,
too divine to our ever-extending multitudes,
three flowers which look exactly the same.
Five fingers on your hand and
eight petals on the flower.
Thirteen for the luck,
and twenty-one for all the signs that say nothing at all happens solely on it.
This is not God
and this is not purpose.
Child and grandchild and mother and flower.
Take them to the stars
and they’ll look like them,
they’ll look the same.
Drown them in the sea
and they’ll sink the same,
shells and bones the same.
And if you dare,
take me to a bed of glass flowers
and dance me a golden tarantella.
I promise,
we’ll all spin the same.