—Then in the scalloped leaves of the plane tree
a series of short, sharp who’s:
a little owl had learned to count.
You lay in your bed as usual not existing
because of the bright edges pressing in.
All at once the black thick o’s of the owl
made the very diagram you needed.
Where there had been two
kinds of infinity, now there was one!
The smudged circle around the soul
was the one the gnostics saw around the cosmos,
the mathematical
toy train, the snake eating its tail.
Relieved by the thought that the owl’s o’s
had changed but not you, that something
could change and not be lost in you,
you asked the voice for more
existence and the voice said
yes but you must understand
I loved you not despite your great emptiness
but because of your great emptiness—