Black as a charred plum-stone, as a plume
from a bone-fire, as a flume of ravens
startled from a battle-tree—the lantern resin
the monk culls from soot to quill the doom
and glory of the Lord won’t fade. The grime
of letters traced upon the riven
calf-skin gleams dark as fresh ash on a shriven
penitent, as heaven overawing time.
World’s Glim, Grim Cinderer, is it sin
or history or a whimsied hex that burns
all life to tar? We are dust, carbon
spilled out from your Word. A lamp overturned
into the pit of pitch beneath your pen
the inkhorn filled before the world was born.