Summer 2008
Paradise
Paradise
Perfection is the mote in the maker鈥檚 eye.
The ape believes he鈥檚 meant for a better place
Than this our prison of shadows鈥搕hat is why
Dante could stare at the sun in Paradise:
鈥淭here, many things are granted to be done
That here on Earth are beyond our faculties,
For Paradise was designed for humankind.鈥
Unlike this world. So Dante stared at the sun
For a long while, and it did not make him blind.
He took his time and studied that fire of fire
Brighter than molten iron, he says. In his mind
Day had been added to day, as though the Power
That made one sun had added a second one鈥
And that doubled sun, redoubling itself, consumed
Our shadows forever, and our one doomed sun.