To my pen and paper

Mother asked how can you learn to write nicely with biro, or worse, with pencil?
(I really call her Mum, but Mother seemed more poetical)
Her arthritic fingers hesitate, pause and then scribble out the shopping list - with a Bic.

I agree with you Mother, that there is much better than pen or pencil.
A fountain pen glides, distributing real ink across the page.
The nib is respectful, worshipful, with lover's lingering caress and kiss.

The pen's body, so smooth to the touch with iridescent colours, mother-of-pearl.
I am transfixed by its beauty and power.
It gives life to my words, demands the Grecian muse infect my brain with fevered fingers.

Yet what is pen without paper? Not cheap notebook pulp but quality, smooth cartridge.
So pristine and white, shrieking to me silently.
To write on such blank beauty seems sacrilege but surely it is a far greater crime not to?

When I die, forget about open prairies and lone pipers but bury me as I wished to live,
fountain pen in my hand, notebook clutched in the other.
Probably best if you toss my poems in there with me and not soil the eyes with such excrement.