doggerel for my math students at Vuvulane High   In a world bewildered by shades of grey where the truth seems to flirt with each trick of the light, where we stumble along in a roundabout way never solidly black, or entirely white, there's a dream of perfection, of facts that stay true, and truths that stay put, and patterns that shine with a permanent sparkle of everything new, and a glimpse into everything older than time. That dream is mathematics, and only here are you freed of all muddle and in between, only here is the sky everlastingly clear, and "always" and "never" are just what they mean. Mortality is certain, our lives are confined, but no darkness can bind a mathematical mind.     © Michael Fleming Tshaneni, Swaziland November 1986