Photographed over ten days in December 1995 by the                                    Hubble Space Telescope, showing the ‘deepest-ever’                                    view of the universe.                                     He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth themall by their names: tutti-frutti, Cimabue, bracelets                                    of Cartier, chock full o’Giotto spilled                                                 onto a black sky like Jujubes                        during a matinee. Anna-Eva Bergmanpainted Earth Seen from the Moon                                    and then painted the moon—Grand rond gong in vinylique and metal leaf—as if it were                                    the mirror she used for viewing                                                  her own paintings. In the cosmos                        of Dante, everyone enters deathbackwards, their past still                                    before them, just as in some funeralprocessions there walks a saddled horse                                     without a rider, boots reversedin the stirrups.                                    If speech,                                               as George Eliot claims, is but broken light                        upon the depth of the unspoken, then all musicplayed on the terraces of the audiences of                                    the moon streams from the violino, the most prized salami in Lombardy—made from the haunches                                    and shoulders of goat, deer, or chamois—shaped                                               like a musical instrument and carved                        as a violin would be played: the paw graspedwith the left hand, the leg held firm                                    beneath the chin, while in the right handa knife slides like a rosined bow. Traditionally                                     accompanied by a Valtellina Superiore, Infernoriserva, it is eaten with a bit of Bitto cheese                                    from the Celtic bitu, eternal, which can be kept                                               for a very long time.                        The telescope showed us galaxiesso far away that their light                                    has been traveling toward us for most of the history of the universe, even though                                    the galaxies keep moving away, just as                                                 Augustine explained: So I can be far from                        glad in remembering myselfto have been glad, and far                                    from sad when I recall my pastsadness, as in the descent                                     into descant or chant, the Latincanere: to sing. Even now I see us                                    on the boat leaving Venice—you facing                                                 forward, me looking back. You did not move                        toward me yet remained in view: your facecentered, in focus, with all of Venice                                    receding behind you.