The Divine Comedy Inferno
Canto X111
1-4
“Nessus had not yet reached the other bank
When we began to make our way across
A wood on which no path had left its mark.
No green leaves in that forest, only black;
No branches straight and smooth, but knotted, gnarls;No fruits were there, but briers baring poison.”
My responding…
Nature is not lost
All wild creatures, insects, plants, and trees are in a state of ecstasy. The praying mantis reflects in my watery psyche only a drip of what that is.
As she embraces the gardenia plant!
Climbing through and reaching also the trailing purple tubular magenta flowers.
Touching the earth while reaching towards the sun.
A spell, my enchanting bliss.
Cleaning away the contrast
Of contraries of my human experience of a paradise lost!
The Divine Comedy Paradiso
Canto XXV
124-127
“Only those two lights that ascended wear
Their double garment in this blessed cloister
And carry this report back to your world.
”When he began to speak, the flaming circle
Had stopped its dance; so took its song had ceased-
That gentle mingling of their threefold breath-”
