I muse, as I tote three archival boxes labeled
Brady, Lettere from the Everest-library
where its mountaintop sages gather
in cardboard ranks.  A. Hales is Brady’s shelf-mate,
Alexander was called Doctor Irrefragibilis—
his “unbreakable” wisdom gracing
13th-century theology. I am aware how
breakable are my bones as I maneuver
these boxes down three flights of stone steps,
then down in the lift to my basement alcove.
Breathless with this supply of sapience,
I feel fragibile in more ways than one!  

Three more boxes of the 20th-century friar
I’m researching, Ignatius Charles Brady,
who loved Scotch and a good pipe,
who though fragile in body was un-
breakable in convictions about life and love,
about Assisi’s Saints and Love’s presence.
Toiling over cryptic texts in archaic script,
he distilled his own wisdom, dispensing
comfort and guidance to so many,
chronicled in the boxes I unpack, letter
by letter, handling with care—fragile—
in onion skin and carbon,
this witness to unbreakable truth.