An Equation for My Children

It may be esoteric and perverse

That I consult Pythagoras to hear

A music tuning in the universe.

My interest in his math of star and sphere

Has triggered theorems too far-fetched to solve.

They don't add up. But if I rack and toil

More in ether than a mortal coil,

It is to comprehend how you revolve,

By formulas of orbit, ellipse, and ring.

Dear son and daughter, if I seem to range

It is to chart the numbers spiraling

Between my life and yours until the strange

And seamless beauty of equations click

Solutions for the heart's arithmetic.