Fourier

A fragment on the digitalization of meaning—waveforms, truncation, and other rituals of dismemberment.

The waves crash and break—
align neatly into bits and equations.
They carry not foam, but format.
Neat. Discrete.

The Mathematician:
”Can you see the horizon—
How it is perfectly wave-shaped?
It’s waves-within-waves
and yet waves inside them.”

We sat by the ocean,
and felt its droning thrum.
Against scattered mechanical bones
and onto naked feet.

Cutting between our toes,
fragments of vinyl scored,
and curling tangles of polyester:
Song—
laughter—
tears, 
impressed in shallow grooves 
and microscopic rust.

We linger in an elegy
to the noiseless breeze,
reflected on its manifold skin.
We filtered the hiss,
the hum,
the salt
— and with them, 
its crackling pulse.

Time converts to frequency.
Signal to simulacrum—
Reality sliced
ever thinner for each step.

We watch the horizon collapse:
The continuous into sequence,
sets into points,
scalars into null.

And so the infinite folds
with ruthless elegance—
into coefficients
and truncated error terms

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