Thursday, June 23, 2011

Creation Myth on a Mobius Band

On the  website of Bert-Jaap Koops, I found this small poem by a poet I admire greatly, Howard Nemerov (1920-1991).

     Creation Myth on a Moebius Band   by Howard Nemerov

     This world’s just mad enough to have been made
     by the Being His beings into Being prayed.

Nemerov's poem first appeared in Poetry (October 1971) and also is found in The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (University of Chicago Press, 1981).  A Mobius Band is a one-sided surface -- if you draw on it with a pen a line parallel to the edges you will return to your starting point having traversed the complete length of the strip without ever crossing an edge.

Mobius band
Nemerov (1920– 1991) was a US Air Force combat pilot during World War II and had a continuing interest in the stars and navigation. He served twice as US Poet Laureate. Poems by Howard Nemerov also are featured in these 2010 blog postings:  March 24, August 16, and August 26 -- and also on March 2, 2011.

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