IN POETRY
Book of Kells

​by Christine Valters Paintner

Back arched over vellum,
a swan feather soars
from between his fingers,
skin stained with ochre,
verdigris, indigo,
iron gall, gypsum.

Lost daily in the luminosity
of words, lines float in spirals
and loops, take flight
like starlings then land
on a page, acrobats
curled in on themselves.

He draws his candle closer
as night widens around him,
sweat drops splash
down, he transforms them
into a mythic beast peering
from behind a letter.
​
Ink and blood together,
scribing mind and heart.
For hundreds of years
to follow, pilgrims gather
to lose themselves
in his alphabet of grace.

Christine Valters Paintner is an American poet and writer living in Galway, Ireland. The author of eleven books of nonfiction on creative process and contemplative practice, she earned her Ph.D. in Christian Spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and is the founder of AbbeyoftheArts.com. Her recent collection of poems, Dreaming of Stones, appeared in 2019. Find her at: AbbeyOfTheArts.com. ​