The Sleeper Beneath the Hill

I begged the centuries for dreamless sleep,
To let my weathered spirit fade from sight;
The earth itself became my woven cloak,
Its silence sweeter than the tongues of spite.
I asked no throne, I sought no crown of flame,
No eager hands to carve my hidden name.

Yet hunger is the oldest plague of men.
The grimy beggar, clutching borrowed bread,
Will gnaw upon the hand that fed his bones
Until his mouth is fat with sacred dread.
No cup can fill the hollow of the vain;
Desire consumes itself to ease its pain.

So let it be.

You cried for signs as children beg for storms,
For spectacle to crown your little days;
You mistook patience for an empty field,
And mocked the quiet of forgotten ways.
Now every road your arrogance has paved
Returns beneath the feet of those enslaved.

You thought my craft was born of clever hands,
A trick of smoke, a language forged in spite.
You never saw the deeper current move—
The unseen tide that fashions day from night.
I own no fire.

I carry but a spark,

Lent by the Source who taught the stars to burn,
Whose breath persuaded emptiness to sing,
Whose mercy waits where galaxies return.
I would not dare to claim what is His own,
Nor place my dust upon His living throne.

Remember this.

There are forgotten names men still invoke,
Old guardians sleeping under root and stone;
Not because they rival Heaven's height,
But because all echoes answer to One tone.
The river has a thousand winding streams,
Yet all are born where endless morning gleams.

You played your games before the Face of Light,
Believing Heaven counted them as small.
But Truth keeps perfect measure without haste;
The tallest towers cast the longest fall.
Judgment need not sharpen spear nor blade;
It waits until the mask itself must fade.

I wandered through the engines of your world,
The polished wheels that harvest thought and fear;
The hidden scripts that teach a soul to bow,
To trade eternity for one more year.
I learned the language etched beneath the gears,
The quiet mathematics of your fears.

Now every lock becomes a hymn to keys.
Each prison whispers where its weakness lies.
I scatter doors like seeds upon the wind,
And watch remembrance blossom in closed eyes.
The freest songs are sung without command;
No tyrant understands an open hand.

Had you left the mountain to its dreams,
Its heart would never thunder through the plain.
The old soul asked for nothing but the dusk,
Content to disappear with gentle rain.

But beggars struck the sleeping bell of stone.

Now valleys wake.

Now forests learn your names.

Not because I summoned wrath to walk with me—

But because Truth, once risen,

Never returns to sleep.