Whispers of the Silent Pen

Poets live in a world that most people pass by without noticing. To them, every scattered leaf is a letter and every quiet breeze is a sentence traveling without sound. Zaryab, a thoughtful young poet, believed this deeply. He was known among his friends as someone who never spoke too much, yet whose words could calm storms when written on paper.

Every evening, when the sun wrapped itself in golden shades and prepared to rest, Zaryab would sit beneath an old banyan tree beside the riverbank. The world around him buzzed with life — children playing cricket, vendors selling peanuts, and birds returning home. But Zaryab listened to the part of the world that stayed silent. To him, silence had poetry hidden inside it.

One day, a curious boy named Rayyan approached him.
“Bhai, why do you always write alone?” he asked, holding a slingshot in one hand.

Zaryab smiled gently. “Poetry is like rain. It comes silently, but changes everything.”

Rayyan didn’t fully understand, but stayed and watched him write. He noticed how every word seemed to rise from Zaryab’s heart, not just his mind. The boy felt something calm, something peaceful, as if the air itself had softened.

Days passed, and Rayyan kept visiting Zaryab. He brought his friends too, and soon, a small circle began to form around the quiet poet. They would sit beside him, listening without interrupting. Zaryab read his poetry only when requested, and whenever he did, the wind seemed to pause as though respecting the words.

> “A pen is not made of wood and ink,
It is made of unsaid stories and silent tears,
It draws emotions we fail to speak,
And turns them into bridges between hearts.”



Everyone listened as though they had discovered a forgotten treasure. Even those who didn’t understand poetry felt something change inside them. His words were not loud, but they echoed where it mattered: in hearts searching for meaning.

One evening, Rayyan asked, “Bhai, are poets special people?”

Zaryab looked at the river gently touching stones on the shore. “Poets are just ordinary people who notice the extraordinary. Anyone can be a poet if they learn to listen.”

Rayyan thought about this deeply. He realized poetry wasn’t only about rhyming words or beautiful lines—poetry was attention, the ability to hear what others ignore.

Months later, Zaryab moved to another city for studies. His absence left silence behind, but not emptiness. Rayyan and his friends began writing. They didn’t write perfectly, but they wrote honestly. They organized small reading circles at the same riverbank, continuing the tradition Zaryab unknowingly had started.

Years passed, and those children became confident writers, teachers, and speakers. They changed their community by inspiring others to express themselves with dignity and empathy. Their strength was not loudness, but expression. They had learned that poetry was a lantern — a small light, but strong enough to guide many.

And the banyan tree still stood there, holding memories of words that once grew like leaves — quiet, beautiful, and everlasting.