Contributor’s Marginalia: Angela Ball on “32 Views from the Hammock” by Lance Larsen

Let’s say we have 32 parallel lines, not meeting,
since in ordinary geometry
there is no infinity.

The hammock of ordinary geometry
twists around us
a mind of summer.

What is an explanation?
It calls upon an underlying law. Law
Is not exact. Not causal.
Law is more than descriptive.

32 is the ninth happy number.
The smallest non-trivial fifth power.
The atomic number of geranium, a grayish metalloid.
The number of Kabbalistic paths to wisdom.

The poem in question and a mind of winter are one
and different. The poem in question
is a summer mind

probably.
A statement is a state of being. It may be confession
or fact.

A confession must involve a change of state
for a person, place, or thing.

Geranium does not contain a series of miniature solar systems inside it.
Probably.

Process is altered by an observer. Its participants alter
in observing each other. Therefore, observation
is power plus helplessness.

A hammock observes stillness
from an aggregate of sides.

Here are
Pattern of statements by natural forces.
Pattern of statements by human forces.

Here are pre and post suppositions.

A longing fits our hammock
slung between worlds
like geranium: a grayish metal known to impersonate
a pest-discouraging flower.

Tea is new and old,
displays rust of slow rivers
on a table decorated with one element,
a flare of petals.

Our hammock cradles our fall. Moon falls around us
as we fall
around sun. The poem’s speaker
falls toward his wife’s
shoulders. Cincinnati
falls toward his wife’s shoulders. It falls
sideways, up, and down
though those directions
are neither separate
nor distinct.

Poetry and the world are elliptical combinations of definite and indefinite.
We know, for example, that the north pole
is slowly moving towards London.
Future people in overcoats faint as North’s trembling spear
pierces Big Ben.

Lists with full stops emphasize
contrasts between definite and indefinite,
presence and imminence
that change places,
bristling.

32 sentences close and open
what precedes and follows.

A sentence conveys itself
In a straight line.

We are now leaving and entering the forest
of ordinary geometry.

Our hammock stamps our shoulders. Crescent
and magnetic, we hang.