An Icon of the Mouth so far consists of two parts: Garment & Raiment; & The Fire Balsam. A third & concluding part, tentatively entitled Aural Figures, is currently underway.

Based speculatively on the life of iconographer & saint Andrei Rublev, The Fire Balsam consists of an introductory sermon on what little is known about his life, followed by meditations on three of his best-known icons, completed with a final hymn of praise.

Throughout the poem, I make use of the trigram XPC for the name of Christ.

I am indebted to N. Lazarev’s collection The Russian Icon (Liturgical Press, 1997) & Andrei Tarkovsky’s kinoroman Andrei Rublëv (Faber, 1991) for his film of the same name.

“Kontakion”
In the Orthodox Christian liturgy, a kontakion is a chanted sermon, normally involving a refrain of some sort, accompanied by music. It is generally acknowledged that this form attained its highest expression in the work of St Romanos (6th C. AD), known as “the Melodist.”

Daniil the Black was noted as one of Andrei Rublev’s fellow monks & helpers.
A companion piece to this poem, “Mockingbird & Icon,” contains further information about Andrei Rublev, as well as some speculations on the theology of icons in the Orthodox tradition.