No Accounting for Nothing

Math for poets: empty, one, two, many,
The ten thousand things. Well, Chinese poets,
Composing in classical Mandarin—

Other numbers for other traditions.
Odd just how much poets like counting things,
Even in their freer situations—

Hejinian, once, aged thirty seven,
Made a book in thirty-seven sections,
Thirty-seven sentences per section.

Count the syllables, count the stresses, count
Turns and counter-turns, parallel phrases,
Count lines, alliterations, and refrains,

Count any way you can divide the things,
But don’t ever be so gauche as to claim
Poetry’s soul hides inside the counting.