Deborah Warren

’Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks.— John Donne, “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day,Being the Shortest Day” Afternoons end early, in December. When the day dissolves in night, remember Lucy, who took on the night, embodied . . . . Continue Reading »

Jacob and Esau struggled in the womb right from the start. Rebekah’s ultrasound, quite early on, revealed the embryos: yin and yang, two fat big-headed commas grappled together head to toe;Rebekah only twenty weeks along,they were duking it out in there already. The sonogram was the usual fuzzy . . . . Continue Reading »

When Solomon was born, birds came soaring, waddling, swimming, flapping around the air.They cheeped and honked to celebrate the day; a few chipped in to give him a layette—eiderdown, eggs, and less-appetizing things. Ad hoc solidarity to honorDavid’s gilt- and purple-bundled heir:pterosaur, . . . . Continue Reading »

The Spartan boy who steals a fox endures with fortitude the roiling mound scratching at his proud breast under his tunic, claws hooked in his skin: he keeps its V-jaws veiled beneath an impassive mien. The shoppers chatter past without a clue while it thrashes and tears into his flesh in panic. He . . . . Continue Reading »

Magdala on the Via Maris hosted the caravans; Egyptian traffic”glass in ingots, ivory, lapis, apricots, papyrus, ostrich-feather fans; the Magdalenes laid out their fish for salting near the inns; behind the fly-specked drying racks day and night the willing women catered to the . . . . Continue Reading »

Imagine the way those horses came plunging and foaming like a race undammed, and how the hot hooves crashing scoured down the hills of Thrace. Fed by an unheard“of hunger” roaring white“eyed from their source, they ate the mountain like a river ravening out a watercourse. He made them stand, . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s not , though: Anyone can tell you this is absolutely not an artichoke. And the Jerusalem that it professes? Some Italian costermonger spoke about the sunflower”the English heard not girasole but Jerusalem ” and, naming these vile tubers, they conferred an accidental dignity . . . . Continue Reading »