Ptolemy’s Concern

“PTOLEMY’S CONCERN” is also from my early, college-days, poems. Again, man’s proven ability to believe in things that are not true, caused me to write this. One of Alexander the Great’s generals, Ptolemy, took control of Egypt after Alexander’s death. The Ptolemy family reigned over Egypt for many generations, thereafter. Cleopatra was of the Ptolemy clan. But, one of the early Ptolemaic rulers was also a mathematician. [A Pharaoh-Math, I guess.] Click here for more about Ptolemy

Ptolemy's Concern
At the unsolicited opening of day;
cigarette butts and coffee cups, delay
the crystalline logic of thought –
and he reasons:
"The universe must revolve around me."

He ponders how far the sun need go,
to reach it's starting point each dawn?
Mathematics is the key… 
"My numbers prove there is celestial harmony.
To think otherwise is ignorance.
To say otherwise - heresy."

But, belief is independent of knowledge.
Man believes what he will…
believes in things he doesn't know,
and proclaims them true.

Spins around, each day again,
to find the sun where it's always been,
and, believes he has not moved.


C.D. Moore
© 1975 -  (rev. 2003)