#134

What say you, artist, to this long absence? Were the lines and limits drawn too close for you to find your way? It was a late autumn evening, if I remember well. With a moon no larger than the paring of a finger-nail. Tantum ergo Sacramentum. Hands at the door in prayer. You said, History, Magic, Alchemical. And your charges cocked their heads to listen.

The writes of the Father; mirths of the Mother. And the hearth between their stones and sibyls. Detournment and such, you showed them. Spells. Four minutes, thirty-three of robins’ song. “You’re ‘ere, my dear; appear. And tell me what you hear.” In the basement of Bennett Hall. In the hour before dinner and dark. Your poetries in human guise. Sufficient for the nonce, artist? And longer still in rhyme?

For now, there’s only thanks to letter. Your six long months behind you now. In the woods, by the stream, the house of doors has stood in preparation. I have kept it open, ready. And a visitor waits for your attention; a piece of crystal in his satchel that was found where things are still. It’s a piece, artist, belongs to you.