The Canvas

It was just plain canvas

White and pristine

A brush in hand

I stood thinking

There arose

In a moment

An entire universe

A whole new creation

With a few brushstrokes

I transformed the space

And lines demarcated

Body and face

There were objects

And creatures

Living and non-living

With distinct features

A little bit real

A little imagined

Some understood

Some intuited

Each object independent

And yet there was an interplay

A story unravelled

With roles the characters played

And yet, what were they?

Without that canvas?

Their forms nothing but

A mere line on that vast space?

Rub them away

And it would go back

To being that surface,

That original canvas.

Is that what we are too?

Mere demarcations?

Our identity nothing?

Just pure imagination?

Features, colours

Actions, reactions

Thoughts, emotions

All vanish in a fraction.

Or emerge in a moment

As the artist thinks

In new forms

And new things.

But whether there or not, 

The only thing that is

Is that canvas, That One

The One we seek.