On September 14th, Dante’s Death Day

gone 700 years today
            leaving us here, in the
                      middle kingdom
                    

       Purgatory
which was Paradise once
                      but which we soiled

          and are about to
turn into hell, or
                      at least an Inferno

for homo sap sap, the
          disappearing species
                        — if it comes to that —

there’s life
          left, there will be
life left

        and right
it will move
                     on, even without us

it will rejoice in us
     gone — I can hear the
           birds celebrating

                       the trees too
                                 the air cooling
                                           the sea cooling

                       it will be the real paradise
           the one sans-sapiens,
that arrogant inter-

ference!