An empty page is looking back at me 

In pristine white and virgin purity.

I stare for moments, sometimes wait for hours,

To see its flaws spring forth like garden flowers.

Some thinness here, a tear, a spot or blemish,

Are starting points, which mar its unspoiled face.

And, following a fault, my eyes begin

Tracing the patterns hidden in the grain.

A shape emerges I could not invent

Which, like a muse, transfigures my intent.

A story the page tells will now unfold

In words I write for readers to behold.

Moments elapse as I wait for the rhyme.

(The meter and the tempo take more time).

A poem will emerge I’ll call my own

But no more mine than earth belongs to stone.

My mind edits the words my heart has spun.

Its purity is raped by mode and pun.

The final draft I haltingly surrender

With doubt that it retains the muses tender.

Though poems may be born of inspiration

They live and grow by men’s manipulation.