Ink on Paper

 

This white page, flecked with pulp, scarcely sustained by

Memories of forest birds who once lived in the branches 

Of its tree, trembles, 

Awaiting the pen and suffusion of black ink. 

The signature is love pressed against a faint substance.

A keen throbbing resonates in my heart

As my hand quivers like a Thrush

Uncertain of the distance between shadow

And space. Like a pure young woman, the

Page accepts the promise of a singular heart.

Light falls like dry leaves, tenacious in their

Will to survive.

What possibility there is in the mingling

Of these two — ink on paper — endowed

With the raucous joy of revelation, of love. 

Yet the moment they cease to cling

Together, the light flickers, consumed by the sea.

Waves like lovers gather and crest, crash into

White uncertainty. And there is the paper,

The covenant of boundless union,

Floating on the spent foam like a sigh.

 Resting for a beat on the beckoning shore,

It slips timorously back into the cold green

Ocean, vanishing till death.

Confused about territories, I love the

Tenacity that still circulates in my heart.