The admirable number pi: three point one four one. All the following digits are also initial, five nine two because it never ends. It can't be comprehended six five three five at a glance. eight nine by calculation, seven nine or imagination, not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison four six to anything else two six four three in the world. The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet. Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer. The pageant of digits comprising the number pi doesn't stop at the page's edge. It goes on across the table, through the air, over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky, through all the bottomless, bloated heavens. Oh how brief -- a mouse tail, a pigtail -- is the tail of a comet! How feeble the star's ray, bent by bumping up against space! While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen my phone number your shirt size the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm, as well as heaven and earth shall pass away, but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing, it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five, its uncommonly fine eight, its far from final seven, nudging, as always, a sluggish eternity to continue. |