Circa Stellas II

The inhabited world

Is not the whole earth

But the strip

Where the sky can be seen

We don't live in the centre

We live in a relationship

Between what rises

And what hides

Between the horizon that limits

Every place is an orientation

It's occupying an arc

An interval of celestial movement

Every step, a position on the sphere

It's not defined by its borders

But by the rhythms of the sky it can experience

Looking is measuring

Walking is situating oneself

Existing is sharing a strip of the cosmos

And the vault that turns

And all those stars

That travel along the equator

They pass through the zenith

Of those who inhabit

Beneath that parallel

All of them are seen

Rise and set

Like the poles of the sphere

They rest on the horizon

No parallel draws

A circle always visible

Or always hidden

And no meridian

Is left truncated

It's said

Or it has been said

That there are human dwellings

Beneath the equator

Now it's simple

Once all this is laid out

To calculate when

And how many times

The Sun reaches

The zenith

For it's evident

That the Sun doesn't reach

The zenith

In those places

Situated beyond

The approximately

23 degrees

1 minute

And 20 seconds

Of the distance

Of summer

This is, then,

The exposition

That we offer

On the fixed stars

Next

We add what's relative

To the position

Of the Milky Way

As far as has been possible for us

We have observed

Each of its parts

Trying to give shape

To its singular appearances

And since

The new hypotheses

Of this work

That set the Earth

In motion

And place a motionless Sun

At the centre

Of the universe

Have already reached

Wide dissemination

I don't doubt

That some wise men

Have felt disturbed

And consider it inappropriate

So long

They have remained

At rest