IN

PRINCIPIO

the Evangelist

rapt in contemplation of the Word,

an eagle at his ear, his slender wrist

poised over the page, the bird poised,

contemplative, predatory, for the long flight.

This is the record of John, as of the scribe

in the monks’ scriptorium on the green isle

some fourteen hundred years ago, at the edge

of the known world – that world, margin to centre,

the unerring flight of a migratory bird.

Then, facing the illumination, blocks

of language, columns, they might be towers of stone

to withstand siege and temporal incursion,

born of the air, though, to be borne on air,

as on broad wings, migrating into time.