Sometimes etymology is beautiful
algorithms for instance
nothing to do with rhythm
but with you, Muhammad ibn Musa
and your magical surname
al-Khwarizmi. So I conjure you
grandfather algebra, you wild and
tiny courtier, in miniature.
Your ninth-century eyes
regard me without astonishment.
We are here to help with passport forms,
I say, and pull-down menu choices.
This man’s. Together we watch
the hospital’s Iranian caretaker
carefully collect visitors’ crumbs
his family barred from travel now
by presidential fiat. It’s a punch line
of history, the algorithm, like a
cosmic socket wrench. Lift me up
you say, tiny scholar dressed in robes.
Lift me up. I want to see.
All these trained machines and one
trapped caretaker. What should he
choose for this question of origin?
I ask you, learned friend—the flow chart
clogs here, and you opine, Yet what are oracles
anyway but stumbling into binary?
It may be simpler just to acknowledge
the bland and bright certainties that
slide under our menu’d thumbs . . . hmmm . . . huh . . .
Not from here, Canada. Not from there,
Persia. Not quite Iran, nor Baghdad. In between.
Like you. Even your famous name rolls in
from the shrinking and salty Aral Sea.
Other. There is no option for other.
Inbetwother. It wasn’t my idea
this algebra for belonging, you say.
Your turban askew, you climb on my hand
and the caretaker moves on to the chapel
where cobalt blue cushions collect dust
devotional and familiar. Here families seek
space and stillness. These are the same
you pipe in, space and stillness.
For what is sweeping after all
but a gentle prodding of sands.
Through the yellow glass, light catches
our beards, each one a different shade:
mine, yours, the caretaker’s.
One black, one brown, one blond.
Hello o future, you whisper
while the broom swishes over silence.
We visit the passport office next, set you
on the limestone counter, its trilobites
the size of your palm, and the caretaker
grips the printed forms . . . explains . . . retreats.
I weep. My tears dribble down to the officer’s
keyboard where they explode in symbols
collected by you, Muhammad ibn Musa
al-Khwarizmi, who pile them up, grey,
green and golden in the folds of your ancient robes.
J. Iribarne lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, where she teaches at Camosun College.
Questions and Answers
What inspired or motivated you to write this poem?
I was helping a fellow immigrant friend fill out a Canadian passport application online, with its by now familiar pull-down menus and other algorithmic elements. It struck me suddenly that the ancient propagator of the algorithm, for whom it is named, would not have been able to complete the form. Not very much is known about this mathematician, but he was probably a migrant, like the majority of humans living today. Eventually he settled in Baghdad, where he wrote some of the most important mathematical and astronomical treatises of the time.
Do you use any resources that a young poet would find useful (e.g., books, films, art, websites, etc.)?
Yes. I spend a lot of time mucking around with other languages—listening, reading, translating. To me, this feels like dabbling with an immense palette of unfamiliar colours. I recommend it highly because it cultivates attention, it’s intensely humbling, and it’s also just good fun.