Some poets arrive
wearing crowns.
They bring long words
and polished lanterns.
They point to the stars
and explain the heavens.
You do not.
You arrive
with empty hands.
You sit beside us
and say,
"Look."
And there,
where we have looked
a thousand times before,
is a wound.
Or a tear.
Or a memory.
Or a heart
still beating
beneath the rubble.
I do not know
how you do this.
I only know
that I come to your poems
thinking I am a grown man,
full of opinions,
full of explanations,
full of cleverness.
And I leave them
a child again.
A child
who has forgotten
how to pretend.
You write:
Silence sits beside me.
And suddenly
every empty chair
in the world
becomes occupied.
You write:
I will survive.
And suddenly
survival seems
a much lonelier thing
than death.
You write
as though language
has never learned
how to lie.
As though words
have not yet discovered
their costumes.
As though truth
could still walk barefoot.
I have read poets
who built cathedrals.
I have read poets
who built empires.
You build
small wooden doors.
And somehow,
when I open one,
I find my own heart
waiting on the other side.
So if there is genius in this,
it is not the genius
of the Thunderers.
It is the genius
of rain.
Quiet enough
to be ignored.
Necessary enough
to keep the world alive.
And for all the days
your words
have lent me breath,
for all the nights
they have sat beside me
like a friend
who does not need
to speak,
I offer you
the only thanks I know:
I will carry always
your poems with me
the way a traveler carries
a lantern—
not because it turns
night into day,
but because it gives me
just enough light
to take just one more step.