How can he explain it to me? Imagine it in your mind's eye, the poet says. Rising early, each morning, and preparing to write. Rising early, at the head of all streams, the day sprawling out like a landscape seen from a mountain, hazy and indistinct, but majestic and broad.
Imagine it: the trickle that will become a stream and then a river. A place of beginnings, of the ability to begin. A place where the writing gathers its strength. But then imagine this: imagine not being able to write, the poet says. The trickle has become a desert. White fog obscures the view.
It rises to meet you, the page, the white page, on which nothing can be written. It looks back at you, the page without writing, and that allows no writing. The whiteness is intolerable. The page's white-in-white burns intolerably.
Its indifference. Its withdrawal. A bank of snow upon which you can make no impression. A wall of fog in which the hand of your outstretched arm disappears.
You cannot mark the page. Ink will not touch it. It will not lie down beneath you. You will not bend over it like a creator god. And it is intolerable. Have you gone snow-blind? Sky-blind? You've gone page-blind, the poet says, imagine that.
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