The Invisible Floor

We have no use for critics in their ivory towers,

for the empty manger, the hands kept clean.

We do not try to avoid the heat,

to keep the cost small and our person safe.

I give you now the one whose devotion—

not observing, not advising,

not waiting for the opportune moment—

quietly anchors another's courage.

By stepping forward as others fall back,

in unflinching stance at the heat of reality,

through accepting that change is the very point,

and embracing the work with all of its weight.

The andiron has learned not to fear the fire.

It seeks no escape, nor sets its dreams

on gentler places or easier paths.

It hungers not for fame or acclaim.

It is there to hold its place

and in truth, there it remains.

Others flail, and flame, and fall to ash;

the andiron remains — it sits, it stays.

Not because it does not feel the heat,

but because it sees in the heat its purpose—

its meaning, the tool by which things change.

Its worth is never met with applause,

nor can it afford to avoid the scars.

Its task is clear: it bears the weight

and offers, there in steadiest form,

a constancy so dependable it fades to invisible

and therein each day these others do transform

without fanfare it is here, an offering made —

the quiet infrastructure of another's courage.

This resilience is never found in avoidance,

but begins instead by embracing the heat,

and being forged into what the fire requires.

The purpose is never to leave the heat,

but to ask who stands beside me, and when, and where—

and will they remain when in time I depart?

So I stay, and they form; I hold, and they grow.

My purpose is not to sit by and watch,

but to stand with them now as toward trial they move.

These others step forward; they take up that risk,

and pursue to the end the summons of their own life.