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A poem about sketching a dragon. |
Surrounded by art books, black charcoal pencils pastels, and vibrant hues, strewn round about. I shove them aside and blowing a small breath, I find a clean pristine page and began to sketch an old friend I’ve met often and only in the land of dreams. In a myriad of light and shadow I shade the flaky scales, blue veins forming in the pink membranes of his wings, soft as the underbelly of a newborn kitten. Whiskers sprout from warty moles. Sharpened caws, moss encrusted, spring forth from where once was nothing at all. His hot breath singes the edges of the page that has given him life, now charred brown and crinkly under my skilled fingers. I begin to sketch rapidly before it is all burnt away. That is always the danger in drawing dragons. As if rudely wakened from a hibernation that has lasted too long, shadows pool underneath as he turns his hoary head and warily trains one cataract-riddled eye on me. I shiver in its yellow melon, hollow and depth-like all at the same time, as he slowly unfurls his mammoth wings With sound akin to an oncoming freight train, he flaps those wings, like a sailboat testing the wind, and I watch him escape to some ancient moore, so enchanted and far away that even my pencil can’t reach. I’ll miss you, old friend. Perhaps we can meet again someday, when I’m brave enough to risk sketching again. |
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