The first poetic image is of time or memory, borne toward us by the golden light of Saturn, Father Time in the ancient world, and near where the Moon is on Monday. On Tuesday the Moon encounters the beloveds, Mars and Venus. Then on Wednesday, the Moon slips past Jupiter, king of the planets, seated on his throne not too far above the eastern horizon. Memory, love, the king ~ written across the morning sky.
For me, it calls to mind Shakespeare’s sonnet #29, which, in my experience, is not about temporal love, but about the regenerative, spiritual love that the divine bears toward the human being, especially when it seems all hope is lost. He wrote:
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
