Downward Grows the Root
Downward grows the root.
Outward grows the skin.
Upward grows the shoot.
What way blows the wind?
Wayward.
By Sef Daystrom
Hurt Without Moving
We hurt without moving.
And poison without touching.
We bear truth and lies,
But are not judged by size.
What are we?
Words.
Long and Thin
Long and thin, red within,
With a nail at the end.
What am I?
A finger.
Don’t Speak But No Word I Cannot Make
I don’t speak but there is no word I cannot make. What am I?
The alphabet.
I Am Worthless
I am worthless, yet when added to others I add worth.
I confounded the ancient Greeks, yet I changed men’s understanding.
What am I?
0 (Zero).
Zero is nothing, yet when you add zeroes to a number like 1, it becomes 10, 100 or 1,000.
The ancient Greeks did not have a name for zero and did not use a placeholder. They seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number, philosophizing about how nothing could be something. Once zero was added, it allowed for more mathematical understanding.