THE SCRIBE

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” John W. Gardner
 
Maurits Cornelis Escher (17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972), usually referred to as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.
 
He worked primarily in the media of lithographs and woodcuts, though the few mezzotints he made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed mathematical relationships among shapes, figures and space. Additionally, he explored interlocking figures using black and white to enhance different dimensions. Integrated into his prints were mirror images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings and spirals. Escher was left-handed…

Magpie Tales has chosen M.C. Escher’s “Drawing Hands” of 1948 as a stimulus for the creativity of the followers of her meme. Here is my poem inspired by this Escher drawing.
 
The Scribe
 
I create with hands clasping pencil;
With pencil drawing lines
That define the hands that guide the pencil,
That is driven by my desperate soul.
 
I write with hands holding pen;
The pen that dips into the inkwell of my heart,
Giving my lifeblood a voice of its own,
And my vehement emotions an outlet to vent.
 
I limn with hands that guide brush;
A brush that takes breaths from my lips
And rebreathes them in colour on a page
That outlines my spent desires and vain hopes.
 
I sketch with hands blackened by charcoal;
The charcoal not black enough to compare
To the blackest thoughts of my mind’s vacuum,
The emptiness of the void that was there
Ever since you left.