29.

Latona’s shining children, at that certain time

the zenith hangs them beneath the scales and the ram,
one on each side of the girdling horizon, seem
to tremble in a perfect equilibrium
till the moment passes and they change hemispheres;
for just so long, alight with a smile, Beatrice stares
at the white point which had entirely mastered me.
‘I answer without asking,’ she then said, ‘for I see
what you wish to hear in the star where every
place and age is anchored; in that perpetuity,
outside of the mercy that is time, past all
comprehension and containment, the eternal
Love unfurls itself in a hundred billion loves…

not moved by self-interest, but so those lives
might flash His splendour back to Him when they say I.
Before light feet whirred on this sea, He didn’t lie
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