Infinity for Instance

Numbers are games, claimed John Horton Conway,

And we’re here to agree, not reprimand,

Little as we know of our first cousins.

If they’re names, they’re games. Names started the games

Or started together with them, the same.

The wonderful trick to the numbers game,

However, is brutal for other names

To try to imitate. There’s nothing much

You can do with numbers you can’t translate

Into other kinds of names, but their rules

Are that their rules have to be discovered.

That’s the numbers game, a hell of a game,

The most intricate and dangerous game

Since parent language, although one for which

Hosts have yet to evolve such aptitude.

All games have edges, boundaries that state

When, where, games end, reality begins.

Games aren’t playing, however much playing

Goes on in games, since pure play’s uncertain

When it’s still play, when it’s practice, when world

Steps in. Numbers may just be playing games.