I received an e-mail from a high school student in Los Angeles. She read my poem in her literature class. Below is an excerpt of my response. If you are interested in, please read it. （It is long...） I thank her for giving me a chance to think about it！ ********** Thank you for reading “Early in Summer, Diophantine Approximation”. First of all, I would like to say to you that I believe that the interpretation of a poem is left to readers, and that readers are free to take the meaning of the poem as they see fit. Not only the meaning explained by the author is correct. The freedom of readers should be guaranteed. With that in mind, I will attempt to explain. This poem is a bit sensuous, like an abstract painting. “Diophantine Approximation” is named after Diophantus of Alexandria. (About AC200~) (Also known as the father of algebra) It is a branch of number theory that studies how to approximate one number (such as the real numbers) by another number with a simpler structure (such a