Some are kind, some are sad.
Some are green, some are blue.
Some are gentle, some are angry.
Some are old, some are new.
Some see everything.
Some see no more.
Some have known only love,
Some, the horrors of war.
They are the first thing we notice.
They are what keeps us whole.
Our eyes are what make us, us—
The windows to our soul.
The master walks with quiet, humble grace,
And seeks the truth where deeper questions lie;
No boastful words are spoken in this place
To lift his pride before the public eye.
He does not hoard the wisdom he has gained,
Nor hold the craft above another’s head;
But offers light where shadows once remained,
That others too may walk the path he tread.
Yet shallow minds will loudly claim the crown,
And peddle truth they never lived to know;
They seek the quick applause of all the town,
Content with all the pompous seeds they sow.
For wisdom never needs to shout its claim:
Only the empty play the expert’s game.
You hold the slender pen just like a lover,
Its touch brings quiet joy into the soul;
You turn the textured notebook’s waiting cover,
To write is not a race, but gentle stroll.
This crafted art of hand is cherished dearly,
In cursive loops or print, it matters not;
The drifting thoughts begin to form so clearly,
Unwinding tangled strings of hurried thought.
The ink upon the page commands the mind,
A tactile grace that sets the senses free,
A simple peace of rare and wondrous kind,
As waking words reveal what thoughts can be.
So take the pen, as Shakespeare wrote before,
And let your soul spill out forevermore.
There it waits, planted in the middle of a sentence,
a stranger sitting quietly on the page.
Growing up, your mother lined the walls with reading,
and words accumulated like small treasures—
hoarded coins, polished stones, prizes tucked into memory.
Yet here it stands: an unfamiliar face.
Your pulse quickens with the thrill of an encounter,
mingled with a scholar’s sudden offense:
How has this traveler managed to evade you?
Was it lurking in the margins on purpose,
a private conspiracy to keep you in the dark?
No matter. You pull down the heavy Webster’s,
demanding its lineage, origin, and shape.
You write it in the margin, speak it to the empty room,
turn it over on the tongue until the vowels behave,
then return to the paragraph to conquer the phrase.
Triumphant, you seek out listeners in the hall,
eager to display the newly captured spoil.
Conversations wander, evening takes the light—
until hours later, you remember the novel,
still sitting face-down on the arm of the chair.
She crosses the threshold in the dead of the night,
Claiming the corners where there is no light.
A phantom cadence, a low-whispered lease,
Holding me close in a desperate peace.
I surrender the keys to her silent command,
Following footsteps across the dark land.
No lectures to guard, no metrics to move—
In the shadow she brings, I have nothing to prove.
But the morning arrives, and the borders reshape,
Daylight dismantles her spectral escape.
The sharp world demands what her absence unmade,
Yet the promise of midnight keeps the solitary sane.
