Omne Trium Perfectum
Too alone we two: a duet, a tipping over
on our duo of shaky legs—
we needed another
to make us solid, triangular
like a milking stool, a trinity:
the many and infinite. Yes,
we are an oddness
but also indivisible
more practical than magical
(airplane row, circus rings,
pieces of suit), but
what ordinary magic! We are
limit and goal, the start
of something: 1…2…
3-legged race, a leap,
hands clasped, into the lake
and an arc—not a line—more fluid
than flat, more graceful
than straight. We are
excess and overflow:
the waltz, the polka;
not binary or system,
not symmetry,
not a table, square, a clout,
but something rare:
a curiosity. We are
braid, a weaving, a wisdom;
archetype and Biblical, a fairytale
of tries or a coven
sharing a single eye.
We are danger,
too, in nature:
leaves of three.
Primary: all colors
can be made
from us, and all matter:
proton, neutron,
the swinging
electron: molecule
and elemental, two hydrogens
rounded by oxygen, nothing
into water. No way
other than three
to have made this world, no way
to sustain life without.