To Make a Thing of Air

The voice said, why do you draw these simple lines,
And to what end? And I replied —

It is the wand of my disposition
From time to time

To try to make a thing of air
That is something more than air,

Some merely mortal carving
Fabricated out of whimsy,

With no more meaning, you might say,
Than a passing cloud on a winter day,

And perhaps dropped in, a jot of thought,
Though surely, really, not a lot — and then

A scar to show some little wear,
Just to prove that we were there.