The Quarry

The blank page is not a void, but a quarry.
I arrive each dawn with my blunt tools:
A chisel of breath, a mallet of pulse,
To hew the form from the marble of noise.

First, I chip away the loose chatter,
The gravel of doubt, the sediment of should.
Seeking the vein—that singular thread
Of quartz truth in the rock of the ordinary.

Here, in the dust and the struggle,
Is where the shape whispers.
Not in the adding, but in the relentless
Taking away.

Until all that remains
Is the echo of the blow,
The curve the stone was always meant to hold,
And the silence that rings
Truer than any word.

By Artie Phishal