in these pages, dusty controversies,
mendicants versus clergy, disputes
long forgotten. But for Henri of Ghent,
Richard Knapwell, Gerard of Abbeville,
the great Aquinas, Bonaventure—they were as
contested as our culture wars today,
though couched in Sententie that march
in noble Latin through these penned notes,
a later scholar dutifully comparing
what seven centuries past was hot debate.  

What wisdom can I learn from his staid
calligraphy, black-inked from broad nib,
strolling gracefully on each page?  

Here Bonaventure asks, “Are irrational
creatures to be loved ex caritate?
and how Assisi’s Saint
was seen to be a man
of “great fervor and tenderness”
toward them:
“swallows obey
and are silent”
at his sermons—
what any preacher
might hope for.