Old Ways

Circle to square and
sphere to cube, impossible
with all the trade tools

Compass and straightedge
can construct root of certain
equations with ease

Yet, a third means of
construction comes into the
picture like a god

To trisect angles,
to double cubes, even to
square all circles

Two's cubic root is
algebraic, but pi is
all transcendent like

Neusis is the term
the purists use to bash the
impure solutions

Math is tradition,
Euclid likely made it so,
accident or not

Truth exists outside
the Euclidean constraints,
truth is what it is

Lobachevsky and
Bolyai proved the universe
as hyperbolic

Old understanding
was overthrown in favor
of actual truth

Squaring the circle,
doubling the cube, trisecting
the angle are old

They are elderly,
respected just tacitly,
having little pull

Their collective place
is in the history texts,
Lenin under glass

The computer has
taken over as the tool
of choice for drafting

From the freeware to
the paid software, solutions
are easily found

Constructions are done
without the original
hand tools, the art lost?

Maybe, maybe not,
human knowledge moves forward
and old ways return