Peter Pereira DANTE RECONDISERS PARADISE Of course, my task was formidable, making eternal bliss seem interesting. Without Virgil I was reduced to mere apology. Yet who except the already damned would find an eternity of grace among pale angels engaging? Especially when he could be jousting in Hell, limbs endlessly hacked and then healed; or circling Purgatory’s seven terraces, meting out a slow but sure century of forgiveness. Perhaps even then I knew how humans need to suffer, will choose wandering a dark labyrinth over endless contemplation of a rose. Copyright © 2004 by Peter Pereira. All rights reserved.