Ian Souter Poet Free verse

An Odd Number

Pythagoras Reed

…..was indeed, an odd number
but a natural with mathematics since birth,
mesmerised firstly by numbers and shapes
then as he aged intrigued by 
space, measurement and rules.
Mathematics rather rulered and regulated his life.
His father, a professor of mathematics,
suggested he follow the educational path
and so he became a mathematics teacher.
Known as Py to many, the mathematical prodigy.

Now he stands on a winter’s playground duty,
as thin as a list of single digits,
shuddering, shivering, slithering down into his coat
of which he knew the exact dimensions. 
His scrape of hair flutters and splutters in the breeze
while time’s dust settles heavily on him.
After 38.3 years of teaching, retirement loomed.
Where had all those years gone? 
All those children he had inspired:
Jack, the successful engineer,
Sophia, the award winning architect
and Gabriele, the very impressive data analyst.

He had aspired to be a successful teacher.
Yes, he’d sometimes gone off at a tangent
and yes, he loved the crackling static
in solving quadratic equations.
Then there had been challenging children like Billy
and how he had tried to use those 15 oranges.
Billy simply replied,” I’ve never had 15 oranges sir;
I ain’t no green grocer!”
Everyone had laughed, even Py saw the pithy humour.
And when children had achieved a special success
he encouraged by floating out phrases like,
“Lovely to see you making friends with mathematics” 
It also helped that he had a voice that smiled! 

But now here he stood in the matrix of the playground, 
a nag of worry hiding in the wrinkles of his face
as he considered retirement possibly being a torn page!
So he felt like one of his maths books;
one with a very testing problem to solve! 
He might have been a natural prodigy but 
what do natural prodigies do in retirement…count time?
After all, he had given his life to teaching;
his wife was mathematics; his children, 
the numbers, angles, challenging problems… ad infinitum.


He now reflects on one of his protracted rules.
“What type of angle do you never argue with?
A right one!” he whispers to himself.
So maybe now the time was ‘right’,
he just required a change of direction,
to find new activities, new friends;
friends that weren’t hidden inside numbers.
A door now eased open in his mind,
a portal that meant subtracting mathematics
from dominating his everyday life
and for Py, the idea might yield…. a natural progression.


Ian Souter

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