What began in Mesopotamia,
tip of a hollow reed pressed
down to create points, sailed
like a vibrating kite glorious
and shapeshifting to an ancient
Hindu meditating on the cosmic
order. Brahmagupta hummed
in metered verse the zerotude
that slumbered until awakened,
the nothing so dark and perfect
under the stars, full moon, night’s
placeholder.
Let us praise the ancient opera
of what began in leaps of counting
(we still count as if our lives
depend on it) to when the idea
of zero arrived from that somewhere
else to hinge the way wide open
signifying the concept of nought.
Whether adding or subtracting,
it will leave you unchanged, for zero
divided by zero is still no marbles.
Equations ripened as zero romanced
proofs, what was good was good
for the nothing because for a something
to exist, it must have a name.
Vestibule for distilling what isn’t there
as it coaxes other numbers along to their
places. Void like the anechoic chamber
in that zone of silence where we hear
only what exists within us. Circular
like the sundial’s aria of light and
shadow, jangling bracelets dancing
on our naked arms, the snake that
savors its tail. plumes of question
marks that bloom from their seeds.
Nothing will come of nothing, Lear warns
and the crooners croon money for nothing,
nothing from nothing, and nothing compares 2 U
which reminds me of the apprentice magician
who stuffed my heart into his top hat and never
returned my first edition of Being and Nothingness.
The what that is not sayable, a dream disappearing
into the mist of morning when he did nothing
to brighten the sad narrative. Like the hard silence
doing the talking for legislators, neighbors
next door and empty eyes at the freeway ramp
in cardboard armor. Nothing that is not
there and the nothing that is. Yes,
Wallace Stevens.
Once upon a time I was the girl who would
Hula-Hoop away her cocoon of certitude
for daily frames of when-will-the-other-
shoe-drop. Nothing often would shape shift
into even more nada. Sparrow slammed
against my window leaving her nestlings
wanting, velvety plum tulips tossed into
the jaws of my mother’s grave, the hoofed devil
of a Mississippi twister nullifying a cousin’s
homestead, my embryo’s blood circling
the toilet’s maw. And yet, a walk to work
spots a stranger’s wet shopping list smeared
from the dew that links me to a faceless soul
who deserves a lemon meringue pie, wheel
of brie, and between the fence posts a breeze
tickles a spider’s star—sweet nothings right
there in front of me shimmering in place.
Shall I stop talking and just listen? Why the
what is? How much do forgotten memories
weigh? My amazement is that I’ve been here
for the long count having begun as zero.
To be simultaneously entranced and unsettled
by the Zen of Nothing like driving in an eerie
fog that seems to erase the world beyond
my windshield. The world is empty.
The world is full.
What matters in mathematics is not
notations, but notions declared
Carl Friedrich Gauss in Latin so as we peer
into the jostle and clamor of the Republic
of Numbers, see the faint breath of nothingness
nudge shell glyphs into sublime stillness and
small dots proclaim absence because you can’t
divide one sacred cow by no sacred cows.
Whether omicrons or double wedges (all pedigrees
of zero) the exact highlight reel of invention
is pulverized by time. Hail Brahmagupta
who reclaimed the hollow circle and spelled out
its rules as he climbed inside the Great Paradigm
for the thrall and thrill of making something
out of nothing. For once nothing appears,
it’s here to stay.
