"the nothing it cares for me"

How did we do? A medium job,
which is well above average. But because
she had opened her heart to me as far
as she did, I saw her fierce privacy,

like a gnarled, luxuriant tree all hung
with disappointments, and I knew
that to love her I must love the tree
and the nothing it cares for me.

From "The Cloister" by William Matthews

Leda and the swan, Giovanni Boldini, 1884