Who were they?—the monks who made this book,
the scribes and artists, once fishermen and farmers,
this son or that a father had given as tithe,

the orphans—left as infants, as children—
who stayed the rest of their lives, and those few
suffused with a sense of a calling. Men
who wore goatskins over their tunics, sandals
in the extremes of heat and cold. The Rule
stressing obedience, order infused
throughout the day: when to pray, to work. Fast
on Wednesdays and Fridays. Conversation
kept to a minimum. Diet, as routine:
vegetables, peas, beans, a small loaf of bread.
Milk and butter. Beer. Those close to the sea,
seal meat and fish. Scholars able to say
four such men copied these gospels, Hand
A, B, C, D, they call them, making the part
suffice for the whole. Who were they? If The Rule
had to remind them to read what they wrote—
yes, errors in text passed down book to book—
what’s the fission, what’s the fusion that explains
such abundance amidst the austere:
two thousand initial letters enlarged
and colored, then embellished with flourishes
of tendrils and spirals, interlacing knots,
serpents undulating around and through,
not one design in this book repeated?

This article appears in October 22 2012.