—The /tEmz/ Poetry Review, March, 2024

 

Time lives

as digits on a number line.

Now is zero    and now    and now   and now

the no in now a shadow looming long

zero the hinge the holder of place

where all moments exist

before they are gone.

Melody

sequences of numbers

frequencies of waves

energy moving

through fluid in space

   zero in music lives only as silence.

Fibonacci

used the term zephyrum

the empty west wind 

in tennis we say love   

l’oeuf     the egg

pregnant

with the cipher of the future

yet nil   the empty set   signifying zilch.

Life

the tick of all the hearts that beat

at once

emerges in the moment now

fleeting harmony in forms

the endless helix-song

without attack   cadence   motive or rest.

We are

nothing that has ever been

becoming

what could never be

all

that has ever been

becoming

all that ever will

alive

in an infinite

zero.