Recording the Quest

The Courtyard was a place of learning,
which is too say that no one taught there,
but that everyone became a willing student.

Oh, some elders there might tell a story,
and draw an audience for a space or wit,
but then might as readily sit in another’s shade.

There was one though who never moved,
nor sang or danced or rhymed a phrase,
yet held beneath the most desired tree of all.

He patiently toiled on a tapestry of sorts –
oceans of creamy silk rolled on cedar shafts
of which only a tiny section was ever seen.

He did not paint in awesome sweep of brush,
or stitch threads of thought in colored cross,
nor sketch upon a faint design of memory.

Instead, he made, or caused to be, tiny dots –
pressed down and in with a quill of raven bone,
and formed of ink made in tiny ivory bowls.

He would call out to someone passing by — a stranger,
and send this one on a quest to find a special stone
from which he might grind powder of a different hue.

When the student returned, successful or no,
it amused the ancient to hear the story of their search,
and crowds would gather for amusement and more.

Some would offer substances for the requested inks,
and these were graciously set aside for another time,
and would be used in passing if one had real faith.

Dot by dot — colored specks of universality –
images emerged still uncomprehendable
across the winding scroll by his darting hands.

For he did not work to complete a scene at all,
but wound across to place dots of that color alone –
until the ink of that person’s gift was spent and done.

My ink is in there somewhere, next to yours perhaps;
surrounded by the touch of countless simple souls
beyond identity, but part of something grand, I know

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