The shelves are heavy, the spine-gold bright,
With secrets snatched from the reaching light.
You stack the "how" and the "why" and "when,"
Then turn to the market to gather again.
But a map is a ghost if you never tread,
And a feast is a famine if never fed.
Why chase the sun across distant lands
With a guttering candle already in your hands?
The truth isn't silver to hoard in a chest,
Or a trophy to claim at the end of a quest.
It’s the rough-hewn handle, the open door,
The salt in the bread, the foot on the floor.
Put down the volume, the scroll, and the pen;
Stop waiting for "wise" to begin being "men."
One seed in the garden, one debt repaid,
Is worth all the empires of light you have weighed.
For the soul isn't filled by what it can find,
But by the small mercies it leaves behind.
Stop searching for fire to warm your skin—
Strike the one match you are carrying within.
