Beauty by JR Solonche

Beauty

From my room down the hall,
I can hear the mathematics
professor getting emotional
about an equation, and I ask
myself how someone can get
so worked up about what isn’t real,
an abstraction, nothing but what?
Signs and symbols. A scribble.

Oh, I say to myself. To him
it is a poem, a formal one,
every word in place, every rhyme
perfect, every stanza exact. Poor man.
He, too, must pound the beauty deep in
with his fist. Every time. Every damn time.

by JR Solonche

Editor’s Note: The title is the most important word in this entire poem.

[Editor’s Apology: Sorry for the double post today. I used the wrong title in the heading in the original post, and needed to correct it.]