The Most Efficient Path

As I take my walk through the woods,

I see untold beauty unfolding before me,

But I peer closer for I want to really see,

Nature’s royal form wrapped in fractal cloaks,

Natural occurrences as in the leaves of oaks,

Complex patterns rising from simple rules,

Fractal recurrences of nodules,

Using a mathematician’s way to explain,

How nature is not so complex but plain,

There is so much simplicity, yet elegant math,

Because nature follows the most efficient path,

Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio have a say,

How beauty even exists in such a way,

With so many stimuli to overwhelm the mind,

I have to concentrate if the beautiful order I’ll find,

Branches, layers, spirals, are everywhere displayed,

 Concrete examples that can be touched and weighed,

Pine cones with the Fibonacci spirals, feathers of owl,

Gathering specimens with camera as I continue to prowl,

Later to change the pictures into numerical models to test,

Analyze, and record patterns from this treasure chest,  

Everything studied and written down as planned,

Like William Blake, “See the world in a grain of sand,”

Then once more I’ll be free to soar and see with eagle’s eye,

Chaos unchained and let my imagination fly.