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.
By David Selzer