Wherein the Book Implies Source
And words form the vessel by which we traverse centuries, the river
stitched across the valley’s floor, easing access.
Accession by choice. Inorganic memory.
Vellum conveys its origin: of a calf.
How like an entrance it appears, a doorway to a lighted space.
Closed, it resembles a block of beech wood.
To serve as conveyance, to impart without reciprocity.
Framing the conversation in space, immediacy fades.
The average calfskin may provide three and a half sheets of writing material.
Confined by spatial limitation, we consider scale in terms of the absolute.
The antithesis of scroll; random entry; codex.
A quaternion equalled four folded sheets, or eight leaves: sixteen sides.
Reader and read: each endures the other’s role.
Pippins prevented tearing during the drying and scraping process.
Text first, then illumination.
Once opened, the memory palace diminished.
* * *
This originally appeared in April 2014 as part of Boston Review’s National Poetry Month Celebration, and is included in The Circumference of Other, my offering in the Silver Birch Press chapbook collection, IDES, published in 2015.
I’m curious as to where the idea for this poem came from…..
LikeLiked by 1 person
From my interest in the written word and specifically the development of books and written language. It’s fascinating to think that we use these odd symbols to represent sounds and ideas, and have developed systems to save and present these representations. It’s also interesting to consider what role written language may have had on memory and our use of it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I love ‘the river stitched across the valley’s floor’
LikeLike
I’m pleased it resonated with you, Phil. Thanks very much!
LikeLike