The Unknowable Unknown

There can be no mathematics
Of the genuinely incomparable,
The immeasurable, the absolutely

Incomprehensible. The infinite
With which math works, the infinite
Of categories, is a toy, must be a toy.

A towering toy to be sure, a toy
Only a few comprehend, but still
A theoretical object, open

To manipulation. Infinities can be
Compared, rigorously, and have been.
Of the utterly incomparable,

It can’t be said even that it exists.
To assert that anything exists is to claim
Some knowledge of it. No one,

No pleroma, no posited creator
Can be put forward that isn’t
Then in play among the many names.

Is there an immeasurable, a real
Beyond all comparison or comprehension?
Unknown. There is no math for it, no term.

Ink Wall to Wall

It’s perfectly clear right now, says the app.
You don’t need to step outside, says the app,
If you want to know that. Check from your bed
With the drapes drawn. You have another app
To check which stars are up right now. Comfort,
Comfort in the lap of mind will hold you
So long as the ants can coordinate
Without too much fighting amongst soldiers
And saboteur stragglers. So long as apps
Don’t fight themselves. If, then, it all goes black.

The Gravity of Enjoyment

There’s a center there, but
It’s hard to ascertain.
Who can center others?

Who can center oneself?
Galaxy and island
Universe, your species,

Bound together by mind,
Tangled up in language,
Isolated in night.

It’s not true you were once
In harmony with life,
Communing with all things.

You’re so lonely, you wish
It were true, and you talk
Amongst yourselves of it,

Claiming there was a time
Of Dreaming and Eden
And animistic ease,

That once you knew the world
In intimate kinship
Terms—brothers and sisters

Among creatures and trees,
Spirits in everything,
You conversing with them.

But you were projecting,
Throwing your language nets,
And you’re projecting still.

It makes it hard to find
The center of your swirl,
The core of your spiral,

Obscured by gas and dust.
But it’s there, and you spin
Around that shining pit

Of the mind’s enjoyment
Of its own awareness
That binds your universe.

Assuming There Is Such a Secret

Levertov’s line would know it,
Not Levertov. Assuming
There is a secret, there is

A secret hiding somewhere,
Anywhere, why not in lines
Or equations whose authors

Admit to have no idea?
The secret to Levertov
Is that she was delighted

To hear of the girls who said
They’d found the secret of life
In her line, and was candid

To say so, to say she’d no
Idea about the secret,
Not even which line they meant.

Every line has a secret,
Every word and equation,
Even if it’s not that one.

The Talking Mirror Test

Animals can’t help much
How selfishly they act.
In fact, animals can’t

Much help how unselfish
It can seem when they act.
So many ancestors,

So many lives, and what
They went through to get here,
Those animals—and plants,

And fungi, archaea,
Etc. The whole
Heavy load of Earth’s lives,

What everyone went through,
That what’s here now lives here.
No one here now can know.

What you can know is that
You’re an animal, yes,
And can’t help you’re selfish

Or, sometimes, unselfish.
But what this thing mind is,
This thing you do? That’s new.

Shimmering

What Naoki Sanjugo

Wrote about the game of Go

Has cosmic application—

If one chooses to look on

Go as valueless, it is.

If choosing to look on it

As a thing of value, then

A thing of value it is.

But this is not true of games

Alone. Paradoxical

And arbitrary as games

Must be, they, for that reason

Throw into relief what all

Value and meaning must be,

The attributes created

By the human observer.

(We spell out human only

As we know of no other

Entity making meaning,

Yet.) Humans manufacture

Meaning in ways that humans

Themselves can’t quite understand,

Perhaps since meaning only

Arises from attention,

Perhaps since, if meaning must

Come from them, it’s not meaning,

Can’t be meaningful enough,

So that, on self-reflection,

Its bubble has to collapse.

Or perhaps, as meaning is

As paradoxical and

Arbitrary as any

Game, then if one sees meaning

As of absolute value,

Meaning is, and if one sees

Meaning valueless, it is.

How Ghosts Still Burble Happiness

The gigue from balletti
Lamentabili, how
Cheerful we are for such

A name as sheet music,
How you reenact us,
Our lively dances, or

Not our dances, our strings,
You puppeteers of bows.
After all that has gone

Down, the generations
Done, done to, and dissolved,
Here you hear us streaming

Fresh tears, merrily, gigue,
Lamentabili. Dance.

If the Grace Is Deep Enough

The headline is grave.

If the Grave Is Deep

Enough. When something

Seems to be going

Wrong, you want to know

What other changes

Link to it. Not this.

Not that. Maybe that.

Links you call causes,

Meanings, makers, why.

Who or what did this?

Break the link. End it.

This is restlessness,

A lot of breaking

Innocent links. Rest,

And you could brave it,

The wearying dirt

Road to the trailhead

Where tracks disappear.

You can, if and when

Grace is deep enough.