in New and Collected Poems, 1931-2001

The Prince of This World governs number.
The singular is the hidden God’s dominion,
The Lord of rescues and exception’s Father
Who from the start inhabited my errors.

One against the multiplication table.
Particular, free from the general.
Without hands or eyes yet real.
Who is, every day, though unrevealed.

Don’t be afraid of the empty millennia,
Of the snake pits rank with death,
Flesh teeming in the thicknesses of decay,
Nor the mist of distant galaxies.

For the human voice will not cease to try
To forge a song for terror or glory.
Since all things for us are ultimate,
Alien, beautiful, though contradictory.