two sticks
some sunshine
a bit of geometry
that's all it took
for Eratosthenes
over two thousand years ago
one stick near the Nile
on a day when the sun
bounced back out of a well
the other in Alexandria
five hundred miles away
casting a measured shadow
two sticks in the sand
a figure in the round:
25,000 miles the earthly girth.
© Paul Taylor 2003
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