Inspiration

My favorite thing these days is a blank page;
a palette where my thoughts arrange themselves
in short ironic verses, or maybe
a stick-figure picture of my brother.
Sometimes I think white makes me hungry
and that's how I leave it all day
eating and wasting my time.
But the best days I have something coming,
and the whitewashed page fills with symbols
calling forth pictures and people
dressed in jeans, dresses, and suits--
Yes, these are the best days,
taking me from this homely study desk
to the place where all good thinkers go--
where Shakespeare lectures on the streets
and Thoreau has built his cabin;
where Petrarch, Confucius, and even Freud
sit chatting in lawn chairs discussing the weather.