{"id":378,"date":"2021-10-19T08:32:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T12:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/?p=378"},"modified":"2021-10-19T08:32:08","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T12:32:08","slug":"scriptorium-by-melissa-range","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/archives\/378","title":{"rendered":"“Scriptorium” by Melissa Range"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Before the stepwork and the fretwork,
\nbefore the first wet spiral leaves the brush,
\nbefore the plucking of the geese\u2019s quills,
\nbefore the breaking of a thousand leads,<\/p>\n

before the curving limbs and wings
\nof hounds, cats, and cormorants
\nknot into letters, before the letters knot
\ninto the Word, Eadfrith ventures from his cell,<\/p>\n

reed basket on his arm, past Cuthbert\u2019s grave,
\npast the stockyard where the calves\u2019 cries bell,
\nand their blood illuminates the dirt as ink
\non vellum, across the glens and woods<\/p>\n

to gather woad and lichens, to the shores
\nto gather shells. The earth, not the cell,
\nis his scriptorium, where he might see
\nthe interlace of branch and twig and leaf;<\/p>\n

how green bleeds brown when fields are plowed;
\nhow green banks blue where grass gives way to sea;
\nhow blue twists into white in swirling lines
\npurling through the water and the sky.<\/p>\n

Before the skinning of a hundred calves,
\nbefore the stretching and the scraping of their hides,
\nbefore the boiling vinegar, the toasting lead,
\nthe bubbling orpiment and verdigris,<\/p>\n

before the glair cracks from the egg,
\nbefore the monk perfects his recipe
\n(egg white, oak-gall, iron salt, mixed
\nin a tree-stump, some speculate)<\/p>\n

to make the pigments glorious to the Lord,
\nbefore Eadfrith\u2019s fingers are permanently stained
\nthe colors of his world\u2014crimson, emerald,
\ncerulean, gold\u2014outside the monastery walls,<\/p>\n

in the village, with its brown hounds
\nspooking yellow cats stalking green-black birds,
\non the purple-bitten lips of peasants
\nhis gospel\u2019s corruption already sings forth<\/p>\n

in vermilion ink, firebrands on a red calf\u2019s hide\u2014
\nthough he\u2019ll be dead before the Vikings sail,
\nand two centuries of men and wars
\nwill pass before his successor Aldred<\/p>\n

pierces Eadfrith\u2019s text with thorn,
\nash, and all the other angled letters
\nof his gloss. Laced between the lines of Latin,
\nthe vernacular proclaims, in one dull tint,<\/p>\n

a second illumination,
\nof which Eadfrith was not unaware:
\nthis good news is for everyone,
\nlike language, like color, like air.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
from\u00a0Scriptorium<\/em>, 2016<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before the stepwork and the fretwork, before the first wet spiral leaves the brush, before the plucking of the geese\u2019s quills, before the breaking of a thousand leads, before the curving limbs and wings of hounds, cats, and cormorants knot into letters, before the letters knot into the Word, Eadfrith ventures from his cell, reed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}