Dante’s ‘heaven’

 

We two fallen through earth’s core
beached here at Mt Purgatory
blink back antipodean light
days on end.

There’s sky enough to dive into
islands in green-blue water
to swim to.

Heaven to be earthly
looking up nightly
at the blackness
milky with stars.

from Dante’s Heaven (Puriri Press, 2006), © Jan Kemp 2006, used by permission of the author.

Jan Kemp was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, in 1949. She was the sole woman anthologized in The Young New Zealand Poets (1973), and in ...
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