Bequests

I
I have on my desk my dad’s
Blackthorn swagger-stick and
Nineteen-seventeen compass,
So that when I write a poem
I draw panoramas
As Edward Thomas did,
A map-reading instructor
Before the bloody battle,
Squinting through a prism
To read rainbow numbers
For a sense of direction –
And I keep within reach
My dad’s brass-capped, oxter-
Polished authority-wand.

II
Were they meant for you, clever wife,
Your mathematical father’s
Rosary and Polyphase slide-rule
Put to use when he and Schrödinger,
Refugee from the Nazis,
Genius, Nobel laureate,
Wrote Boolean Algebra and
Probability Theory 
Published in nineteen-forty
In Dublin (Price One Shilling) – 
Calculus at his fingertips,
Logarithms, exponentials
As well as the shiny rosary’s
Simple arithmetic?