NEURODIVERSE ROMP*

REVISED FOR AGRIPPA’S JUPITER MAGIC SQUARE**

                           

I was so awful at Geometry

Although loving numbers and

The math magic of number 9

But here I am

Welcomed by the Magical All

And I wonder

If we on the Spectrum stepped out of Math

And into the reality of Neurotypicals,  

Wondered if our tribe would find

A benign but blind group

Who never roll their disdainful eyes

But do try

To accept

Our contact

How would that be...?

 

Then I sigh

Remembering Albrecht Durer's

Melencolia I

His woodcut always stuck with me

Because could swear he used my mother's face

As model for his sad winged woman

(My artist crush on Durer never displaced)

And I look at the Magic Square on the wall

Adding up to thirty-four

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s came before

And the hopelessness

Of fitting the wrong number

Into a perfect Magic Square

And know we'll never really fit into

The Society we crave

The friends whose

Open or secret condescension

Surfaces when we try to behave

Exactly like them...

 

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: 1514 A. Durer's Melencolia I / Magic Square / Mission Galactic Freedom

*This poem was originally written using the Mystical Magic Square as a metaphor for Neurodiversity (Autism) and having to labor to fit in, like the numbers.

 

Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514 (nga.gov)

**A fine explanation of Melencolia (Melancholy) being connected to the artist’s creativity.  The article also mentions Agrippa, whose Magic Squares I am studying, and I tend to agree that Jupiter’s (AKA Jove = jovial) Magic Square is a good “cure” for finding humor and enjoying life, despite the artist’s melancholy creativity, at times. Note that Durer changed the order of the numbers, although they still add up to 34 horizontally, vertically, and diagonally.