Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Binding Each Word
with an Incantation, a Charm, a Spell
You. Not a generalized out-there “you” but – YOU
Gentle Writer
A mysterious thought is dream’ed unto you
Or a conclusion sails from your observant mind
You take a pen of goose-quill carefully carved
You dip it into a horn or pottle of ink
Not a metaphorical inkhorn of floridity
But the horn of a beast, hollowed out
Stoppered with a fitted wooden plug
And charged with ink of a curious blue
Of minerals or dyes or the juice of berries boiled
And worked with pagan spells or Christian prayers
You take an expensive page of animal-skin
Worked out with scrapings and scrubbings and acids
Or perhaps imported sheets of Egyptian papyrus
(Against which some of the younger brethren sneer)
Remember the annual budget! Be careful, now!
Paper doesn’t grow on trees, you know!
(Well, you could argue about the papyrus)
You set the light just right, the sun or a lamp
The Altar is where candles glow in honor of Our Lord
(And then there’s the budget; candles are expensive)
So you must work with the sun or a tallow lamp
At a writing slope angled as the amarius says
You think a thought
You lift your pen
With a prayer upon it
You guide it down
You write a word
A word
Each word is magic
What did you write?
