A long time ago, at least two thousand years, there was a rich man who had a good and beautiful wife, and they loved each other dearly, but much as they longed for children, they had none. Day and night the woman prayed, but no children came. Outside the house there was a garden, and in the garden there was a juniper tree. One winter's day the wife stood under the tree, peeling herself an apple, and as she was peeling the apple she cut her finger and her blood fell on the snow. She looked at the blood and it made her very sad. "Ah!" she sighed. "Ah! If only I had a child as red as blood and as white as snow." When she said that, she was happy; she had a feeling that something would come of it. Then she went back in to the house. A month went by and the snow with it; two months, and the world was green; three months and flowers came out of the ground; four months and the trees of the forest pressed together and the green branches mingled; the woods resounded with the singing of birds and the blossoms fell from the trees. The fifth month passed and she stood under the juniper tree. It smelled so sweet that her heart leaped for joy, and she was so happy she fell down on her knees. When the sixth month had passed, the fruit was big and firm, and she became very still. After the seventh month she snatched at the juniper berries and ate so greedily that she grew sad and sickened. When the eight month had passed, she called her husband and wept and said: "If I die, bury me under the juniper tree." With that she took comfort and she was happy until the next month had passed. Then she bored a child as white as snow and as red as blood, and when she saw the child she was so happy that she died.

Why Nancy?

Ernie Bushmiller's comic strip Nancy is a landmark achievement: A comic so simply drawn it can be reduced to the size of a postage stamp and still be legible; an approach so formulaic as to become the very definition of the "gag-strip"; a sense of humor so obscure, so mute, so without malice as to allow faithful readers to march through whole decades of art and story without ever once cracking a smile.

Nancy is Plato's playground. Ernie Bushmiller didn't draw A tree, A house, A car. Oh, no. Ernie Bushmiller drew THE tree, THE house, THE car. Much has been made of the "three rocks." Art Spiegelman explains how a drawing of three rocks in a background scene was Ernie's way of showing us there were some rocks in the background. It was always three. Why? Because two rocks wouldn't be "some rocks." Two rocks would be a pair of rocks. And four rocks was unacceptable because four rocks would indicate "some rocks" but it would be one rock more than was necessary to convey the idea of "some rocks."

Kob Antelope

A creature to pet and spoil
like a child.
Smooth-skinned
stepping cautiously
in the lemon grass.
Round and plump
like a newly married wife.
The neck
heavy with brass rings.
The eyes
gentle like a bird's.
The head
beautiful like carved wood.
When you suddenly escape
you spread fine dust
like a butterfly
shaking its wings.
Your neck seems long,
so very long
to the greedy hunter.

The sore trees cast their leaves too early.
Each twig pinching shut like a jabbed clam.
Soon there will be a hot gauze of snow searing the roots.
Booze in the spring runoff, pure antifreeze;
the stream worms drunk and burning.
Tadpoles wrecked in the puddles.
Here comes an eel with dead eye grown from its cheek.
Would you cook it? You would if.
The people eat sick fish because there are no others.
Then they get born wrong.
This is not sport, sir.
This is not good weather.
This is not blue and green.
This is home.
Travel anywhere in the year,
five years, and you'll end up here.

It is a green hollow where a stream gurgles,
Crazily catching silver rags of itself on the grasses;
Where the sun shines from the proud mountain:
It is a little valley bubbling over with light.

A young soldier, open-mouthed, bare-headed,
With the nape of his neck bathed in cool blue cresses,
Sleeps; he is stretched out on the grass, under the sky,
Pale on his green bed where the light falls like rain.

His feet in the yellow flags, he lies sleeping. Smiling as
A sick child might smile, he is having a nap:
Cradle him warmly, Nature: he is cold.

No odour makes his nostrils quiver;
He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his breast
At peace. There are two red holes in his right side.

...for the same church Donatello carved a crucifix out of wood, taking great pains about it. When it was finished, he was convinced that that he had produced an extraordinary work and he asked his close friend Filippo Brunelleschi for his opinion. After all of Donatello's praise for the piece, Filippo expected something much better and upon seeing it he could not help smiling a little. Donatello saw this, and begged him - invoking their close friendship - to say what he thought of it. Filippo obliged him, and said that it seemed to him that Donatello had placed on the cross a peasant and not Jesus Christ, the most perfect human ever born. Donatello, expecting praise, was stung by the reproach and replied, "If it was as easy to do a thing as to judge it, my Christ would not look a peasant. Go get some wood and try one yourself."

Without another word, Filippo went home and quietly set to work upon a crucifix of his own, determined to vindicate his judgment by surpassing Donatello. After several months he brought it to completion.

One morning, he went to Donatello and invited him over for breakfast. On their way back to Filippo's house they came to the old market. Filippo bought a few things including eggs and gave them to Donatello, saying: "Take these to my house and wait for me there. I'll be there in a moment." So Donatello went on ahead to the house and as he came into the hall he saw Filippo's crucifix, placed in a good light. He stopped in his tracks and gawked at it. He was so overwhelmed by its perfection that his hands rose in amazement whereupon the eggs and everything else he was carrying fell to the ground and broke into pieces.

He was still standing there marveling at the crucifix when Filippo arrived and said with a laugh, "What are we going to eat now?" Donatello replied, "Eat if you like; I've already had enough. To you it is given to do Christs, to me to do peasants."