“The City Where Poems Wake”

“The City Where Poems Wake”

In a valley between two mountains,
Where dawn walks slowly like a shy traveler,
There stood a strange and wondrous city—
A city where poems woke before the sun did,
Where words had wings
And silence knew how to sing.

The people of that place were not builders,
Not merchants, not warriors, not kings.
They were poets,
Men who carried gentle storms inside their hearts,
Men who believed that even a single line
Could mend a broken sky.

They lived in small houses made of folded pages,
And every roof had a quiet heartbeat—
The sound of stories waiting to be told.
At night the windows glowed softly,
As if the dreams inside were lanterns
Willing to guide the lost.

One of these poets,
A quiet boy named Rahim,
Walked through the alleys every morning
With a notebook tucked under his arm.
He was young, unsure,
Still learning how to hold the weight of feelings
Without letting them spill.

He wondered if his voice was too small,
If his words were just shadows
Following the footsteps of others.
But the community of poets around him
Never let doubt settle on his shoulders.
They spoke to him with kindness,
Mending him like a torn page.

“Every poet begins as a whisper,”
Said the oldest among them,
A man with snow-white hair
And eyes that held a thousand dawns.
“But even whispers can bloom into winds
If they believe they have a direction.”

So Rahim listened,
And with each sunrise
He traced lines across his notebook,
Little rivers of thought
Flowing toward a distant sea.

The city had a place called The Bridge of Quiet Voices,
A long wooden path above a river black as ink.
Every evening, poets gathered there—
Not to read aloud,
But to release paper boats carrying their day’s writings.
The river carried them away,
Promising to deliver each poem
To a heart somewhere that needed it.

Rahim watched them,
The soft glow of sunset painting their faces,
Men who knew the world was heavy
But still chose to add beauty to it.
He wondered if he had beauty inside him too.

One night, when the sky was stitched with stars,
He walked to the bridge alone.
The river murmured like an old friend waiting.
Rahim tore a page from his notebook—
His hands shaking
As if he were touching the edge of a dream.

He wrote only one line:
“Let my small voice be enough to light someone’s night.”

He folded it carefully into a little boat
And placed it upon the river.
For a moment it trembled,
Unsure like he was.
Then the current caught it gently
And carried it forward
Into the glowing darkness.

The next morning the city woke brighter,
As if the sun itself had read Rahim’s line
And decided to rise with extra care.
Poets gathered around him,
Warm hands on his shoulders,
Smiles soft as morning clouds.

“Your poem reached someone,”
The old poet said.
“We found your line carried far downstream,
Pinned against a rock—
But the rock was shining.
Your words made even stone feel lighter.”

Rahim felt something open inside him,
A door he had been afraid to touch.
He realized then that poetry
Was not about being the loudest voice
Or the most brilliant mind—
It was about offering something honest
To the vast and waiting world.

And from that day onward,
Rahim wrote not to be great,
But to be true.
And the city of poets—
That quiet, glowing place—
Held him as one of its own,
A light among many,
A voice among hundreds,
A poet whose story had finally learned
How to fly.