The finest block of marble is carefully chosen.

The sculptor’s mind skims across its surface

On a quest to reveal the subject embedded there.

The hammer and chisel go to work

Arguing over each grain they remove.

The artist remains calm stoically accepting

His tool’s arguments,

The little pains in his hands and back,

The long hours of solitude

That seem to stretch on forever

But are not even a blink in the halls of time.

He is deaf to the calls of the bills

Stacked on the kitchen table

While the echo of critics’ words sink into the abyss.

Eyes and heart work together with the brain

To mediate the hammer and chisel’s disagreements.

Slowly the work progresses

Until a masterpiece is revealed.

Yet the sculptor’s mind knows,

And in his heart, he understands

That no matter the skill,

No matter the artistry,

Or the steps taken for preservation,

The sculpture at some future point will break

And time will grind the pieces together

Until they are nothing but dust.

In much the same way

I smith words to fit coherently,

Evading the censors with censers of incense,

Clouds of smoke I hope will help my words

Evade their steely glare

To allow my story, my message to be told.

Brain and heart wrestle with emotion

Deep into the night

While the words of critics

Slide into inky blackness.

I ignore physical discomfort,

I ignore the passage of time,

The lack of acclaim and wealth.

Continuing the work is all there is

And I do continue despite the knowledge

That no matter how wonderful,

No matter how many reads my work gets,

In time it will disappear in a cloud of dust

As will everything in Time’s great hall.

So why do it at all?

The sculptor and I share the same obsession-

To create and create

Until we can create no more.