First stroke.
Hand poised:
a heron's beak.
And suddenly
the page explodes
into something I can
hang my attention on.

Then the tension
in the solar plexus.
Writing a poem about nothing
is difficult.
I can't get a bearing on it.

My fingers tighten
on the brush.
The loaded bristles stab again
and incorruptible reality
is neatly tailored
to my artificial scheme.

Leaning on my arm,
I glance behind me
at the trail of devastation
inching down the page.
There is no turning back now,
no second chance.

My brush no longer
mediates between
intention and accomplishment.
It races on ahead of me,
guided by the incidental
pattern of its progress.

Independent of endeavor,
indifferent to what I am
or what I hoped to be,
it brushes my design aside
and draws its own conclusions.