How many feathers has the fan? <br />he once asked me as we watched the peacocks <br />shashay on the grass. <br />Feathers? That’s absurd; it is the beauty of the bird <br />that brings me here. <br /> <br />Might not a specimen of 40 feathers <br />exceed the loveliness of one with only 39? <br />he went on. Does not a palette of 14 colors <br />make a prettier landscape than 4? <br /> <br />The pleasure of nature and of arts <br />is not found in quantification, I replied, <br />or enumeration but in the whole and its parts, <br />not in atomic tables and charts. <br /> <br />As he attempted time and again <br />to sneak upon the birds to count <br />their feathers, the sunset and its countless colors, <br />the trees and their chaotic symmetry, <br />the immeasurable vault of the sky <br />encompassed the two of us, <br />and I knew that tonight <br />I just might count the stars.<br /><br />Sonny Rainshine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/quantification-of-quality/
