In the poems, Pythagoras is always searching for meaning in patterns—in the caws of crows, the flight of geese—but he is also visited by the random. "But then, without a sign, the crow departs; this randomness of fate gives him a chill./He sees the beauty of wings merged with night ..." Was it a random coincidence that I was at the same time writing a book set on an estate with Italianate gardens? Inspired by Lee, I created a poet named Zalman Bronsky who wandered through the Italian gardens composing sonnets, which Lee graciously agreed to write. Immersed in researching the Italian gardens, we traveled to Rome and Sorrento in the summer of 2004. While walking in the Roman Forum Lee discovered a bust of Pythagoras and was inspired to write "Counting Toward the End," in which "Pythagoras divides the summer dawn/into the cosmos, multiplies by breeze/and quality of drifting yellow light/to calculate how many roses thrive/within the boundary of circling sight." His calculation conflicts with what he sees and yet his "faith in truth of math endures despite/this failure."
