An empty page, like fresh snow:
Seen from above, the purity of a white landscape,
Both inviting and intimidating. Daring you
To make your mark, leave behind some pretense
If you can.
The world of the page is vast and featureless, snow-buried.
The words I seek are hidden in the cold, outlines of a
Lost city, reduced to invisibility at this distance.
Search is fruitless, a fool’s dream: the ideas swirling like snowdrifts
Cover and uncover what I mean to say; sense is obscured entirely…
But I am drawn on when, for mere moments at a time, it is there:
The shape of what I meant to say, frozen and perfect below.
All too soon, that cold white shatters my vision into fragments.
It is gone, slipped cleanly away beneath a silent shroud
Of alternate meanings, endless possibilities
Until my head spins and I am snow-blind.
Weary, disappointed, I would abandon my search, but for
Those almost-sightings leading me onward, hope to keep me warm,
Frustration as my guide. When next I see my vision, I strain,
Committing it to memory, and yet I know that I will never truly see it
As it is. I take back with me my imperfect rendering, the shape of my
Thought burned into mind just out of reach, with only broken phrases
To translate it for me.