they made people different in the dark ages--pale as martyrs, long-fingered hands folded in prayer or turned up, stigmatic blood collecting in their palms. Their necks are always craning, bodies unnaturally posed, as though looking up or bending down were not humanity's natural states.

--a different species, wearing colors brighter than we know--richer blues, headier greens. The medieval mind was a thing of interlaced vines and celtic knots, holy days writ in red--the world was a circle unraveling, the liturgical calender turning and turning until it would be anno domini iterum, in saecula saeculorum. amen.

everything was germanic forest and blank spaces on the map, miracles and monsters embedded in the skein of the world. (how else is god to show his power?) all is ordered, and aristotle's spheres are fixed tending towards the center--the earth, the heart.

there are angels with illuminated wings at the edges of the manuscript, their heads bent together, whispering about dragons and the Kingdom on the next page.