“If there are frontiers between the civilised and the barbaric, between the meaningful and the unmeaning, they are not lines on a map nor are they regions of the earth. They are boundaries of the mind alone.”
--Ursula Le Guin (via @cjsarett)
"Now eye and ear · err a moment.
What odd items · edge these pages,
beckon from the borders?
—Babooneries flaunt.
Of the narrative, enough! · Ignored margins,
chocked cheek-by-jowl · with the chief purpose,
reveal devices: · the verges swarm
so turn from the text · to tarry idle
amid the scribe’s sketches.
On the scraped parchment
round the writing, · there wreathe framing
grisaille tableaus; · designs and scenes
blazoned about · the black letter,
over and under · in the uncial quires:
emblems circle · on either side
in linked legendry, · a limner’s doodling
fool-fantasies · —or in fable-talk;
the key to the code, · correspondence:
a ladder linking · least to greatest,
above and below · bound by signatures.
Here an obscure master skilfully made
interlacing · illustrations
in painted panels: · picturings such
as to beguile our gaze. · This forgotten artist
(minor maker, · of a mannered school)
drew drôlleries, · his dreaming quill
—in silver-point, · then sepia tincture
culled from cuttlefish, · or by cooking together
oakgalls and iron · with Arabic gums—
wove the wormshapes."
--Rahul Gupta via
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