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 This level crossing
 
I¹m pausing at, 
patient, facing
the lowered gates
 
while the bells ring
is where I used to pause
forty-plus years ago ­ driving
 
my son to day-care.
Little more than a toddler,
he¹d be sitting up in the back
 
on the child¹s fitted seat,
craning forward to see the train,
Hurstbridge to Melbourne
 
packed in the morning
(or met on the way home
Melbourne to Hurstbridge
 
packed). Count the carriages!
What a long train, son.
The bells cease, the barriers go up.
 
On then to day-care
where I¹d guiltily
leave him while I taught
 
not far away, and he,
well ­ he got through his day,
with other waifs to play
 
or maybe compete with
over their snacks and
uniformed Œcarers¹.
 
He could count, and soon
count the hours. Yet ­
only yesterday, I learned
 
there are kids who never
cope with numbers, nor
learn to tell the time.
 
We¹ve all heard of dyslexia ­
well, they¹re calling this
dyscalculia! and the teacher
 
was saying some kids even
miss out on finger-counting,
having no aptitude,
 
or as we say nowadays,
lacking the neuro-connections
necessary. Feel for them
 
but despair not! Science
is showing how these brains
can be rewired. Beside,
 
without arithmetic
you can still do well
in set theory and other
 
mathematical regions
(provided you¹ve got
the wiring for them).
 
The train goes through.
The bells cease, the barriers
rise up, I drive on.
 
Son, you¹ve been more
of a mathematician
than I ever was. Counting
 
the carriages passing
may have set you ticking.
Just now, I lost count
 
of them myself,
recalling you and this word
new to me, dyscalculia.
 
 
              Max Richards