Mark Arvid White

Sunflower, Mathematically Speaking


It
grows
in its
place, perfect.
And of its beauty
artists, poets delicately
brush or speak in praise the magic name of sunflower.
O the golden face of nature's art, they say, which science hard can but enumerate.
But beauty born unto each day is built upon the very essence of a mathematician's soul, patterns of a scientific way.
For in that sunflower's head the florets spiral, Fibonacci sequence thus revealed,
twenty one times clock-ward, thirty four the other way.
And each with each the sunflowers
turn to the perfect
circle, sun,
they count
each
day.

Bio

Mark Arvid White lives in Alaska, and has been writing poetry and stories for a number of years. He is devoted to haiku and other Japanese forms, but also loves to write in many other non-Eastern styles, including Fibonacci. His publication credits include such print and online journals as Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Candelabrum, Permafrost, Japanophile, Wild Violet, AlienSkin, and many others in the U.S. and abroad. He has received best of issue awards, appeared in numerous anthologies including A Haiku Moment, and has won various contest awards. He is the founder of the Shin Tao Haiku Retreat, a gathering place for poets online in the virtual community of Second Life.