Steam and Feather

In this small kingdom of cracked teacups
and laundry hung like prayer flags,
we find ourselves in the bright wash of morning
the voice of wet leaves,
the small thunder of a kettle on the stove.

I tell you, in this kingdom,
every breath is a monument.
Even the bread crusts on our table
sing of hunger and of grace.

The children carry yesterday’s laughter
like a lantern down the narrow alleys.
A woman hums as she mends the sky,
needle and thread in her fingers,
patching holes left by last night’s storm.

I stand in the courtyard,
my mouth filled with the language of apples
the red, the sweet ache of their skins,
the weight of what we hold
and what we must let go.

In this kingdom, nothing is wasted.
The cracked mirror becomes a sunlit river,
the broom a scepter of quiet dominion.
I have seen a boy gather shadows
in the hollow of his hands,
holding them up to the sky
as if to weigh the measure of his days.

Listen
the pigeons in the eaves sing of dust and feather.
The old dog at the gate dreams of running
through a field of endless bone.

We live by the mercy of small things:
the curl of steam from a pot,
the thunder of feet on wooden floors,
the warm shoulder in the half-light.

Let this be enough
a kingdom of breath and bread,
of open windows and the hush of lilacs,
of every small kindness folded into our pockets
like a map to a city that has not yet been built.

We are alive here
alive in the way of rivers,
of light gathering in the throat of dusk,
alive in the way the heart becomes
a small cathedral,
each beat an echo of what is possible,
each silence an open door.