The Pencil and The Paintbrush

When laid peacefully, side by side, at rest,
the pencil and the paintbrush look like friends.
But when one is picked from the cluttered desk,
one finds that where the friend begins, it ends.

The Pencil: “I can write a thousand words!”
The Paintbrush: “I need not a single one.”
The Pencil: “I am precise. I am heard.”
The Brush: “Who better shows the setting sun?”

Maybe they argue, once they’re set back down;
one will go silent for days, and then weeks –
when this watercolor of a lost town
is finished, will the pencil rise to speak?

Muses come and go, always on the hunt
for brush-stroke verbs, gilded stanzas, and Once.

-Nadia Larissa Trousdale

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