Interesting people are drawn to the margins. The fringes of things, the edge. Not the cliff edge of risk but the page edge of possibility. It’s not that Aristotle and St. Thomas and Isidore of Seville were not interesting, but they lived in a day when knowledge still needed to be gathered together, collected, connected. There was a time when a genius could write out a dictionary alone and...

Confusion with his lord had long been a source of frustration. Still, confusion was the way of things in the murky air below. Confusion with the first or the second Adam had forced him to operate very indirectly. That was why his defensive work had to be so odd. He did love the bright sword -- its keen edge was micron-thin but atomically serrated and those points did glitter so -- but rarely did...

Everyone always wants to see the instrument of healing. One would think that just healing them would be sufficient, but, sense-bound as the human is, they need to see and then feel or taste or smell it. Strangely, as dependent as they are on hearing, sound really never works. This feature of the funny little animals has provided Raphael with marvelous scope for creativity over the years. Back at...

It started on the morning of the day of the Moon. Perhaps that was the morning, the one that gave all such days their meaning. A small thing it might seem: to split the one half from the other. One had such fascination with the glittering break and it was a great and terrible purpose. I should have feared the thing. On the one side all tremulous, gasping, gaping open wound and, on the other,...

If only they were all like the Annunciation. A receptive soul thrilling to obedience with modest eyes downcast and affirmation even in the hesitation. Sandro got that one right: all graceful curves and expressive language in every line. He’d been more than a little surprised at both her submission and her understanding. Of course it’s a bit easier when the cloak he wears is impossible beauty...

"Finity" One rain drop divides Tracing two paths down the window, And though my heart breaks alike I must stay one.

When sorrow for Paul’s cancer And Tom’s dead father And the ache of Kenneth’s heart And my dog dead and gone threatens to undo me, I seek the peace of wild things And walk out into the forest To lie down and feel the hard edges of nature. Bleached elk skull, pulled down three winters back By a wolfish hunger. Ridge of fallen tree in soundless decay. The heron feeds on the frog’s choked...

Mercy Dust swirls. Breezes sigh. The metallic tang of blood is heavy in the air. The doorposts of the slave quarters are smeared, sticky, dark. Elsewhere no meaty iron scent corrupts the night air, just ordinary cooking fires, burning lamps, the muddy river. Night sounds join scents: soft voices, barking dogs, croaking frogs. It is a wealthy land, fertile, educated, artistic. Great architecture...