.read out loud.

"if you ever asked me
how my drawing classes are going,

I would tell you that I enjoy
adhering to the outline of a thing,

to follow the slope of an individual pear
or the curve of a glossy piano.

And I love traling my hand
over the smooth membrane of bond,

the intelligent little trinity
of my fingers gripping the neck of the pencil

while the other two dangle below
like the fleshy legs of a tiny swimmer.

I would add that I can get lost
crosshatching the shadow of a chair

or tracing and retracing
the slight undercarriage of a breast.

even the preparations call out to me-
taping the paper to a wooden board,

brushing its surface clean,
and sharpening a few pencils to a fine point.

The thin hexagonal pencil
is mightier than the pen,

for it can modulate from firm to faint
and shift from thin to broad

whenever it leans more acutely over the page-
the bright yellow pencil,

which is also mightier than the sword
for there is no erasing what the sword can do.

We all started with the box and the ball
then moved on to the cup and the lamp

the serrated leaf, the acorn with its cap.
But I want to graduate to the glass decanter

and learn how to immobilize in lead
translucent curtains lifted in the air.

I want to draw
four straight lines that will connect me

to the four points of the compass,
to the bright spires of cities,

the overlaping trellises,
the turning spokes of the world.

one day I want to draw freehand
a continuous figure

that will begin with me
when the black tip touches the paper

and end with you when it is lifted
and set down beside a luminous morning window"

drawing class. billy collins

(oh for the days when we'd read outloud what was silently printed on paper...love.)