Bible Black

The crisping of early winter mornings
forms wispy tendrils
of delicate steam
which float above the teacup
sitting on a wooden box
to the left of my reading chair
in the snug of the studio library.

It is often a place
and a time of year
where and when
I go a little deeper
and darker
under the sway
of Under Milk Wood.

Last November
while walking those Welsh worn cobblestones
I had two companions.

On my shoulder to the left
were the well thumbed pages
of Dame Hillary Mantel’s Cromwell saga
and leaning just there on the bones of the right
Franny Moyles’ weighty tome of a biography
of Hans Holbein, the younger…
of course.

Magnificent chroniclers of juicy details
all three authors taken as one
provided a playground for this pondering artiste
while the Muses plucked their gossiping lute strings
stirred up lessons from the lives of the great poisoners
and ground pestles of earthy cadmium fire and indigo mystery.

Over my leftmost shoulder
just beyond the peat bog stained shelving
its Trinity alphabet leafed in gold
hiding a scintillating glint
winking from atop the leaning pole of mace
tucked there into the darkly columned corner…

just there
gesturing away from all that history
toward the promise of
of a canvas garden coat
draped over the rim
of the sour cherry scarred bucket
reflecting the raking
of the earliest morning light
then flinging us out and beyond
to the white stone guards
of the churning ocean horizon…

stood that stalwart maid of the chamber
Her-story
ivory aproned
and bible black.