A Curve Closed

Her short cropped hair admitting few curves
Like her equations, a trove of frugal beauty.
Of surfaces, toruses, and closed curves--
Real things in an imagined topology.

A geodesic is the shortest curve
Amongst all like it:
The laconic prefect of an unruly class
That stands and speaks for them all.
What it lacks in length,
It makes up for in weight --
Though not in the literal sense;
Euclid won't allow it!
But it carries the weight
Of other wanton, wasteful curves.
It speaks for all, despite being the shortest.

Thus it was with the curve of her life
Brief though it was --
How illogically, unfairly, painfully short!
It carried the weight
Of not just her ambitions
Across continents, cultures, classrooms, conferences;
But also those of more meandering life-curves.
That accomplished not so much,
Longer and loopier though they were.

And though I can't speak for her,
Ungifted, untutored, unprepared and unskilled as I am,
She speaks for me
Through her scintillating work.
The geodesic of her life,
Though it closed too soon,
Is yet the weightiest one of all.

For Maryam Mirzakhani

August 2017