Ron Padgett

History Lesson

I think that Geoffrey Chaucer did not move
the way a modern person moves.
He moved only one inch at a time, in what
we call stop action. Everyone in his day
moved like that, so they could be shot into a tapestry,
but also because time moved in small lurches
and was slightly jagged and had fewer colors
for them to be in. But that was good. Humanity
has to take it one step at a time.

--fr. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, How to Be Perfect (2007)