The Architecture of Want

I've been hunting truth through these tangled woods for years,

following its prints in the half light of almost understanding,

where every clearing promises revelation

and delivers only more confusion, dressed as trees.

Sometimes I catch a glimpse, a flash of white tail

disappearing into thicket, and I'm certain

I've nearly had it, that elusive thing

that would make everything else make sense.

But the closer I come, the faster it scatters.

What I thought were tracks turn out to be shadows.

What I thought was a call turns out to be wind

whistling through the architecture of my want.

I've learned to move quietly now, to wait

instead of thrashing through the undergrowth

of argument and certainty. I've learned

that some prey can only be approached obliquely,

that meaning, like a deer at dawn,

appears only to the patient, only to those

who've earned the right through failure,

who've walked home empty-handed enough times

to know the hunt itself is what transforms us.

Not the trophy mounted on the wall,

but the ten thousand mornings we rose in darkness,

the cold, the doubt, the returning anyway.

Still, I go out. I shoulder my questions

like a rifle. I scan the tree line.

Because the not finding has made me

who I needed to be to find it.