The Paper Blank within my Hand (Poetry format)

This is the same story but laid out as a poem. I found it more fitting. And I adore this version so much more than before.

The Paper Blank in my Hand (2015)

 

The paper, blank in my hand, asks for creation.

But of what can I bear, when in my mind

There is not thought, imagination,

Stifled since three years to the day.

The paper, blank in my hand, asks for creation,

But I have nothing to bear.

So, I ask the paper instead,

Of what can it bear for me?

Staring at the white page grants nothing,

So to what purpose has this thin sheet of tree to my life?

To what purpose has it to me

That I should take pencil to page,

Scribble a bit and say voilà?

--Nothing.

 

This paper, blank in my hand, has no purpose.

It cannot ask for creation in the same way

That I cannot ask for inspiration from a blank page.

This paper, it will never be good to me.

So I crinkle it into the tightest ball my fist can make

And throw it into the waste amongst the others;

--I cannot create.

 

Yet, may it be that another sheet has

Miraculously appeared within my lap.

It flutters, fleeting, until I look upon this page,

And then it is still, as still as my heartbeat,

For a moment I felt something,

Something that I haven’t

Felt since three years to the day.

I slap the page onto the desk

and with pencil in hand create shapes,

Create images, create life.

The paper glows happily beneath my wrist,

Its sharp corner points at a stack of colors,

The other corner reaches for a pen.

And I take this pen, and I trace my lines,

And trace, and trace, and trace until

The white paper beneath my wrist looks like

A page from a children’s book.

--And I create!

 

I reach for the colors and I fill everything in.

Hours pass. Hours, I say,

For I colored past the moment when

My fingers became stiff and hand numbed,

And I colored some more. The page,

It comes to life beneath my wrist,

--It comes to life!

 

There was not a moment within

The time my pencil struck the page to

The time I blew away the last dust of color

That I stopped to wipe sweat from my brow.

And it was worth every moment,

For when I look upon the page there thrives creation

In all its glorified colors,

Dancing playfully as I smile back.

The characters wave and so too I.

They talk amongst one another

And tell stories and live like I live,

And will eventually die like I die;

For he is the Adam and she the Eve.

 

The paper, no longer blank in my hand, asked for creation,

And I had borne this very wish.

Author's Note

As writers, we are creators. Never forget that.