Song for the Troubled Mathematician Who Confronted Remote Infinities

Cantor was depressive, too. Paranoid,

he believed he heard God’s voice reciting

theorems—divine mathematical whispers.

Here, birds eat, drink, and mate on the wing. Such

aerial existence has a certain

disadvantage: come what may, we all end up

on the ground. But the air has substance.

The spaces between stars are filled with dust

and gas. Large African antelope can survive

indefinitely without drinking. Saw off layers of

antlers to find the atheism of dry things. Still,

—and this explains a few things—

stars coalesce from dust and gas; God’s word

is flexible. Cantor had proof. 

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[1] Georg Cantor (1845-1918), whose work implied “an infinity of infinities.”

--First published in Fourth River, Autumn 2011