The poem
Salvation = (Bathing Ghosts)(Magisterial Moonlight On The Temple Bridge) ⁄ Depraved Ancestors
The value of salvation is to the value of bathing ghosts as the value of magisterial moonlight on the temple bridge is to the value of depraved ancestors.
The same poem, solved four ways
A similar triangles poem is a proportion, a ⁄ b = d ⁄ e, and a proportion can be rearranged without changing what it claims. Each arrangement is a separate poem and all four say the same thing.
- Salvation = (Bathing Ghosts)(Magisterial Moonlight On The Temple Bridge) ⁄ Depraved Ancestors
- Bathing Ghosts = (Salvation)(Depraved Ancestors) ⁄ Magisterial Moonlight On The Temple Bridge
- Magisterial Moonlight On The Temple Bridge = (Depraved Ancestors)(Salvation) ⁄ Bathing Ghosts
- Depraved Ancestors = (Magisterial Moonlight On The Temple Bridge)(Bathing Ghosts) ⁄ Salvation
The image
A Korean temple bathhouse after dark, lit windows and snow, with the equation set into the black above the roofline. Palingenesis is rebirth — the thing coming round again out of its own remains — and a bathhouse is where the body is made clean before it goes on.