from spiralling ecstatically this

proud nowhere of earth’s most prodigious night


blossoms a newborn babe: around him, eyes


–gifted with every keener appetite


than mere unmiracle can quite appease–


humbly in their imagined bodies kneel


(over time space doom dream while floats the whole

perhapsless mystery of paradise)

mind without soul may blast some universe

to might have been, and stop ten thousand stars

but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall

even prevail a million questionings against the silence of his mother’s smile

–whose only secret all creation sings.

e. e. cummings