looking out windows with David and Michael in 1936

setting stars 1935 oil on canvas by David Milne

   Read him slowly, dear girl,
   you must read Kipling slowly.

  Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses.

sunset beyond the islands 1936 oil on canvas by David Milne

  He is a writer who used pen and ink.

  He looked up from the page a lot, I believe,
  stared through his window and listened to birds,
  as most writers who are alone do.

  Some do not know the names of birds, though he did.'

big dipper 1936 oil on canvas by David Milne

Think about the speed of his pen.'

That was the English patient's first lesson about reading.

lightning 1936 oil on canvas by David Milne

She had turned from the ending of Kim, with its delicate and holy sentences - and picked up the patient's notebook, the book he had somehow managed to carry with him out of the fire.  The book splayed open, almost twice its original thickness.....

And in his commonplace book, his 1890 edition of Herodotus' Histories, are other fragments - maps, diary entries, writings in many languages, paragraphs cut out of other books.  All that is missing is his own name.

all text by Michael Ondaatje from his novel,  The English Patient 
these horizon paintings by David Milne are his most minimalist