In response to a Middle English facsimile of the Gospel of Luke
The minims of textualis crowd themselves,
ascenders aplenty but descenders few,
into Wycliffe’s words of Gabriel to Mary:
Every word shall not be unpossible to God.
Eyes deceive; should that not be impossible?
But Gothic palaeography is imprecise at best,
one scribe’s work distinguishable from the next
though no two like words be glyphed the same;
in Latin rotunda, the smallest mimes of the gods
of snow do not wish at all the wine be diminished,
would be penned as nothing more than an echelon
of militantly mystifying and tittle-free Indiaed iotae.
No Carolingian curve to aid
No printing-press dotted aye
No serif, nor digitized kerning
Proportional space or justification
Just Simeon’s song and sufficient strokes to wound:
yea, a very sword to pass through thine own soul—
that the thoughts of many hearts be revealed.
