IN THE BEGINNING

On the first day of summer she asked the novice

to open the scriptorium’s small casement.

And suddenly the river’s murmurings

became clear, and she could hear curlews

calling from the narrow estuary,

and thought of her family in the village

beyond the river through the woodland

two furlongs away. Then remembered

how nostalgia is a neighbour to regret.

She turned to the sheets of calfskin vellum

pristine on the desk before her, touched them,

smelt the animal scent on her finger tips.

She ruled lines across the first page of parchment,

chose a quill the novice had sharpened,

a pot of black ink they had made from soot,

and began: ‘in principio creavit

Deus caelum et terram…’ When she came

to God’s name she put the quill down and looked up

to ask the novice to fetch the brass-bound box

that held the lapis lazuli and gold leaf.

She saw the girl had not been watching her

attentively as she usually did –

intending always to learn and learn,

as she had herself when a novice – but was pale

and bent over, and realised that Eve’s Curse

was suddenly upon her. ‘Sister,’

she said gently, ‘you will be a bride of Christ.

Go and sit by the window, and pray’.

As she watched her go she thought again

of her own noviciate, and of her nieces

and nephews in the village over the wall

beyond the river – and admonished herself.

The novice, turning, called to her, ‘Please come,

sister’. ‘What is it, child?’ she asked. ‘Sister, please’.

Beneath the casement were the abbey orchards,

a kaleidoscope of apple blossom. The summer air

brought the scent unbidden – and the sounds

of the river, and the distant cries of birds.