​Ode to What Endured

The fire did not want the iron,
but the iron sat in the hearth anyway,
growing red and holy with the heat,
learning the language of the flame
without turning to ash.

​I find it in the small, stubborn things:
The silver-threaded seam of a favorite coat,
held together by more memory than wool.
The lighthouse glass, salted and pitted,
staring down the Atlantic’s green throat
until the storm eventually apologized.

​We celebrate the bloom, the sudden burst,
the fragile tulip breaking the spring crust—
but what of the root that stayed?
The one that slept through the iron-grey frost,
buried under a foot of indifferent snow,
clutching the soil like a secret
it refused to tell the wind.

​It is not the mountain’s peak that earns the ode,
but the stone at the base,
pressed thin by the weight of the world,
becoming harder, deeper,
more itself with every passing era.
​So, here is to the scrap of song
that survives the static of the radio.
Here is to the heart, that rhythmic muscle,
scarred and stitched by every "goodbye,"
yet still beating a path toward "hello."

You are still here.
The bridge is still standing.
The ink has dried, but the word remains.
And oh, how beautiful it is—
to be the thing that survived the fire
just to see the morning.