October 4, 2011

the canvas

Enough has been said about that blank space, the pause
of possibility pointing to a still-unnamed story. We don’t need
another poem about potential, or the way we bend at the knees
toward the dark tunnel we hope might lead to greatness. Instead,
I want to celebrate the opening mark of the pen, the infant half-inch of paper
glued to the upper right-hand corner. The inaugural dip of a soaked brush
that lays a line of paint down flat. The “yes” that finally tilts the doer
into doing. This poem is for that plucky charge into the gauntlet, the dogged push
through all those voices arrowing critique. This is for the stroke that bursts the bubble
clinging us to fear. The hand that reaches in not for beauty, but for rubble.