Poetry | Winter 2023
Midnight Manuscript
by Karen Pierce Gonzalez
In the dark I wake
to granite mortar-and-pestle
grinding lapis.
Blue powder
illuminates last words.
Benedictine boar bristle brush
glides across stretched goatskin
lit by tallow light.
Latin letters slant, curve, and curl.
Upstrokes lift me above the ground
of muddied December.
Midheaven, I watch
medieval robed scribe
study the page then step back
hum Alleluia! Alleluia!
Green onions
on cleric’s chestnut counter
rise into the air alongside me
small roots dangling
like tapestry threads
on monastic writer’s wall.
Karen Pierce Gonzalez is a Northern California writer and artist.