The Bear

I remember still the thrill as the long snout took shape beneath my quaking fingers, which strained to lay things straight 

The wet nose was only partially captured in clumsy charcoal, but a suggestion of light through a bit of page left white—addition by absence—made me feel what Rembrandt must have: utter delight
The shivering wonder of shaping reality enough that some other could see it and know its name—
"Oh, nice bear," they might say,
And I would grin despite every impulse already burgeoning within me, to play things cool and quiet

Letting the world know nothing—
Isn’t this what we call growing up?

To the eyes, too, I added small flecks of white, as our instructor had showed us, and brought everything to light (if not quite to life)
Amazed at what one small glint can do

Standing back, I could not see the bruin’s odd shape—
That his visage was like play dough left to sag too long under its own weight,
A clay vase thrown with lumbering hands
A face that could hardly stand another child's scrutiny

But love, they say, is blind, and
I felt the absence of sight and of distance from anything—a part of everything, I was, suddenly—as if I had drawn a portal and absorbed myself into all time and space, through an act of true creation

Beneath the bear, I signed my name
But left absent the words I was too old to say
I only felt them, keenly, in every ounce of my burgeoning frame:
"I made this"

So I inked the practiced cursive with steady focus belied by nonchalance
A thin line of lip pursed with hidden pretense on my unrevealing face

I stood signing, standing between two worlds
Seeking new ways to draw the future forward
With clear and steady strokes