The Act

The Act

Blank before me
Like an uneasy, but eager, impatient virgin,
The paper stares back.
Unstimulated,
It mocks me and
The initially impotent pencil
Stuck between my uncertain fingers.

As I stare and lust,
Desirous of making it mine,
It dares me to touch it.
It challenges me to muss its purity.
It begs me to stroke it.
To make love to it as only, it says, I know how.

Tentatively, I start.
One careful stroke to its unmarred surface, followed by another,
And the act begins.
It opens to me.
Lies back, and graciously accepts what I give,
Easing my mind. Relaxing me,
Stroking my ego, and building my confidence.

Adventurous thoughts, spontaneous ideas, novel concepts
Thrust forward with ever increasing forcefulness
And retreat, pulling back in erasures,
Allowing for changes in position, adjustments in movement.
Only to plunge deeply and sensuously once again
Tenderly loving it, loving me.

Repeating the process
Until, finally, the once pristine sheet
Is part of me, and me of it.
Covered with my flow,
It is no longer paper, but consumed and transformed
Into something more, something greater,
By one more burst of my inner fire.