A poem about sacredness.

This poem of mine is kind of dim (some might say boring), but I like it. I am in a mood for increased sacredness. I also cherished sacredness during the period last year in Maryland after it was decided we were moving to North Carolina.

Sacred

Sometimes I wonder,
What exactly I am doing.
Because I don’t understand
my motivations.
No.
Of course not.
It would be silly
to act
only after when my motivations
are understood
by me.

I don’t really have a clue
what she thinks of me.
Mixed emotions!
Yes,
that is the most probable explanation
that fits most everybody.

Vaguely I feel
I could know
just how much particular people
are afraid of me.
But reason
tells me
it’s pretty hopeless.

Girls could say,
“I’m frightened.”
But they don’t.
And actually I can understand why.
If girls were up front
about their fears
that would make it easier
for the people who deserve fear.
The dangerous men would just go after
the ones
they knew weren’t afraid of them.
It’s a nuisance to deal with,
though.

And I wish I could tell
whether girls want privacy
or attention
when attention
unavoidably
may compromise privacy,
especially when a desire for secrecy
isn’t exactly what girls
are most likely to have had
the most
respect for
in men
when setting up
their option menus.

Somehow sacredness seems the emotion
I most need and cherish.
I don’t really care, actually,
what others think of me,
as much as others,
and yet,
I care too much.
I must guard myself
against
general opinion.
I could almost say,
“I am, respectfully,
your humble dutiful servant, etc.”
But I’m not.
Because I don’t want to be that.

Thinking of her
makes me want
to pick up my math books again.
To review things I’ve forgot,
and learn the fundamental things I never learned
or never learned quite right.
To turn the pages
with sacred devotion.
Jordan-Holder theorem there—
and over there,
retrace the argument that a permutation
can’t be both odd and even,
think about how it looks
composing from right to left
and left to right.
No mere irrelevant choice, perhaps.
Is a sequence the order of the dice in front of me?
Or would it be better to think of it
as a sequence of positions with the indices
of the sequence
merely the numbers I see
each one
on its own die?
It might matter,
what choice is best,
depending upon how I should think of it.
I think I’ll choose the former standard choice,
but not because it is standard.

I want to become knowledgeable
in my own way.
Without enthusiasm
I can gain wisdom
greater than what I’ve got
but there is danger
I’ll spend all time reviewing
striving for perfection
merely because I feel error
as corruption
or too readily allow myself
to fall into the chant
of the math book
encouraging me
not to skip
or think
outside the order
the math book is written in.
No error
is worth being pedantic
over.
I want to get where I want to go
Without worrying particularly
What route is best.
All I should demand
I dream
is a sense
I’m sort of going
in the right direction,
like when something makes me wonder in confusion,
that’s what I should employ my faculties
of understanding
then upon,
especially if I can behold
myself
in my imagination
considering it
with sacred concern.