SUNDAY POEMS

Writing is the act of starting over.

BLANK PAGE

The notebook lays there, inert, the pen beside it.
The page is wrinkled, the way top pages in new
notebooks often are. Tear it out. What a waste. 
Cut it into quarters to use for reminders you can 
thumb-tack to the corkboard you took when you 
left your last job. They intended to fire you. 
You intended to quit. The corkboard was the 
compromise: you left with it and they saved 
themselves some paperwork.

Speaking of paperwork, the notebook. Page two
is pristine. It seems a shame to mark it up, all
that scribbling and scratching out. Best perhaps
to start with one you used for past projects. 
There are always plenty of unused pages.
They can contain your test runs. Save the new
pages for something more advanced, something
you can later claim was where it all started.
No one needs to know about that other notebook.

Pencils are amateurs’ drafting tools. Pens are
the professionals’ choice. Erasure is impossible,
forcing careful craftsmanship, absolute artistry. 
No one wants to see a page full of smudges.
Remember when you thought a fountain pen
was the answer? You tried out different nibs,
experimented with refillables, a throwback to 
cursive classes when schools were filled with 
ink-stained fingers. You opted for cartridges. 

No more. Now it’s ballpoints and felt tips, your 
Watermans, Parkers, and Monte Blancs consigned 
to a drawer, waiting for the day when a collector 
comes calling. You should look into that, see what
the resell market is like, invest the money in a new 
tablet and stylus. On a screen it’s easy to make your 
missteps disappear, easy to chase perfection when 
revision is just a cut-and-paste away. All those pundits
telling you perfection isn’t the point are missing the point.

Of course it’s the point. Why else get up in the morning? 
Making art of any sort is always the pursuit of perfection.
It might not be the result, might not even be achievable,
but the pursuit is the purpose of the art-making process.
Think of all the canvases burned, pages shredded, 
recordings erased. Think of all the projects abandoned 
when perfection remained aloof and elusive. Maybe this
will be one more. Maybe this notebook isn’t the one.
Maybe what you need is a different pen. 

©2026 Skip Berry