Page 11 - GALIET EXILE: Dante IV+

Galiet & Galiet
Song and Prelude. Dante’s exile is a wondrous journey where mind flares anew (Par. 33, 97-99), away from quotidian fears and every delusion or ‘selva oscura’ present in the shadows of unbeing. In time, mind becomes that spark that sees the seeing of seeing beneath poetry’s gaze. In time, it becomes that verb and verse whose singing of singing soars through Dante’s rivering stars (Inf. 34, 139), ever rising higher and higher towards singing stars (Pur. 33, 145), and which, once silenced and dying, rise once more to that love that stirs and ‘moves the sun and all the stars’ (Par 33, 145).
On Dante’s wings of sublime poesy, the Hototogisu.1 Bird that tears and bleeds as he sings, bird that, in his singing, mirrors Dante’s song at the margins of the abyss. Abyss at knowing he does not belong. Bird, whose self-song is bliss’s despair. And Dante’s long nights and few days, in his suspirations, shall flee away and thus end. End 3⁄4 as the Hototogisu’s breath shall also end with the singing of his song in the crepuscular hours of an unknown day. In time, a poet shall wander and hear the bird’s cry. In time, too, he shall assume the Hototogisu’s name, Shikki, it shall be, and he shall weep as he writes, with indelible rose ink, upon hearing the call of death, this brief Haiku poem of three verses:
3⁄4 For ears swollen
With sermons and predicates The Hototogisu2
Thus, Dante’s fleeting bird’s song, at the beginning of Paradiso 25, shall perennially lament, verse by verse, verb by verb, Dante’s infernal exile from his beloved Florence, and his ever latent and
1 The Hototogisu is spelled Shikki in Chinese characters.
2 Warnken, Cristian. El Mercurio. Reportage of November 29, 2008.
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