The Golden Ratio & the Coriolis Force*

This morning God himself—his wafer—
lay for a moment naked on my tongue.
I felt the blood of God race through my veins.
week by week Christ’s flesh gets
broken down in my own body cells, as
the platelets in my plasma, like an uncurling
swirl of skyward birds, like my life spiral,
maintain their swift unwinding.
 

The second law.
 

The hurricanes, like commas
on the weather map. Amoebas.
Waterspouts. Curled fetuses.
Convolvulus vines twisting anti-clockwise
on the trellis. Dust devils dancing over fields.
The spiral nebulae. The nautilus.
The human ear. The bathtub water
scrolling down the drain—everything
made by God looks God-like,
and these unfolding spirals seem to me
the shape of God. The universe, once
wound up, is now rewinding, like my life—
to zero and the Everything of God
(who lay this morning naked
on the manger of my tongue).
 

*Author’s note: The Coriolis force describes how moving objects, such as water going down a drain, are deflected as a result of the earth’s rotation, spiraling right in the northern hemisphere and left in the southern hemisphere.

Luci Shaw, “The Golden Ratio & the Coriolis Force” from Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation. Copyright © 2006 Luci Shaw. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission of the publisher; all rights reserved.