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October 12, 2017

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Photography, Poetry

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Magic of Five

IMG_7461

How Many Fives Can You Find In

tuning
a star
a maple leaf
a baby’s open hand
and wiggling toes 
May flowers in sunshine
the scents of apple
the music of Louis Armstrong’s story
the tastes of the working week,
the Great Lakes icy touch
the oceans
Tolkein’s wizards
a pentaquark (leave it to the physicists to find the smallest)
a lustrum
the elements of religion
and philosophy

Tastes of Fibonacci

Sweet,
sour,
salty,
savory,
but last is bitter.

Notes: Five underlies modern counting systems, half of the base ten. It echoes through history and across countries and religions. Christ had five wounds. Shiva has five faces. Islam has five pillars. The Torah has five books. Sikhs have five sacred “k” symbols. The Iroquois have five nations. Buddhists teach five precepts and five evils. Confucianism has five classics (wujing). Alchemists and Wiccans adopted Aristotle’s five elements: earth, wind, air, fire and space (or quintessence). Chinese philosophy has wood, water, fire, earth and metal. Japanese philosophy has wind, water, sky, fire, earth. Mayans believed five symbolized perfection. The Olympics symbol has five rings. Tolkien’s world had five wizards to protect it against Sauron. A “perfect” fifth is how people tune violins. Louis Armstrong’s story was told by the Hot Five.

A Fibonacci Poem is one in which each succeeding line is equal in syllable length to the syllable length of the preceding two lines added together, or one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, etc.

Poetry Friday with kids
Happy Poetry Friday! Thanks to Irene Latham for hosting. Many will be celebrating Friday the 13th. I am stuck on five. The fibonacci sequence contains both 5 and 13. Perhaps there is method to my madness… or not. Have a lucky day, either way.

56 thoughts on “Magic of Five”

  13. I love your appreciation of the number five, Brenda. I had students research a chosen number one year, and we gathered them all into a celebration of numbers. There were surprises in the discoveries that most numbers have significance in history. Your post would have inspired very much! I love that flower petal beginning!

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  16. Cool topic, Brenda! I read an article the other day about the world’s favorite number being 7 (with second place going to 3, and third place going to 8). Mine is 5, though. 🙂 Thanks for giving it the magic treatment!

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  20. Whoa! I was born on the 5th and didn’t know so much of this. Yay! More reasons to celebrate the number! Thanks for a great post with a lovely poem, Brenda. (P.S. I’m going to have to look up a few things later on today and learn a bit more.)

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  21. this is fascinating. i have never thought about the 5s. as close as i can come is the ‘magic and power of 3’s’ – quite often found in fairy and folk tales., along with other stories (3 bears, 3 little pigs, 3 billy goats, 3 wisemen, 3 kings, 3 daughters, 3 sisters, etc -)

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