Ode to the First Octant
Eating my oatmeal, sipping my tea,
“Where”, I wondered, “should I stroll today?
I won’t be rash and decide in a flash.
There are choices to carefully weigh”.
“Left/Right, Up/Down, and Forward/Back -
There are but three choices to be made.
I will be smart and think like Descartes.
Then, I can begin my promenade.”
3D was an art, before Descartes
And anti-left, an ancient bias,
Around how to choose which hand to use,
Dating to days of Zacharias.
“Left” is a direction long bad-mouthed.
People said it was wrong, and not “RIGHT”.
Is it deft to choose not to go left,
Or is going left just as upRIGHT?
Why does “up”, not “down”, enhance “UPright”?
To be on TOP of the list we try.
Why not make our goal DOWN in the hole,
Instead of way up HIGH in the sky?
We would rather our heart RISE than sink.
Heaven is ABOVE, and hell, BELOW.
A hawk on patrol beats a blind mole.
So goes the story of “high” and “low”.
Better to go UP, but harder too -
The way old Newton would have it, see,
“If you don’t like, take a hike, ‘cuz
We are all pulled down by gravity”.
While UP in Flanders, a mapmaker,
Aptly named Gerardus Mercator,
Put Flanders on TOP, refusing to swap
With Australia, BELOW the equator.
Another bias, it seems to me,
Is we want to go forward - not back.
In a world sublime, it relates to time -
Einstein said, “it’s relative, Jack”.
Both my oatmeal and tea are now gone,
And the sun has sunk low in the West.
Tomorrow, I’ll drink tea, and I’ll think
Where to walk. Now, I’ll have a nice rest.
Copyright ©
David Crandall
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