-A contemplative meditation on coexistence, the poem reflects on how separate lights moving through shared uncertainty can help us navigate division without losing sight of one another.
The fog arrives
without announcement.
Fields disappear.
Roads lose direction.
Distance shortens
to what the eye can hold.
Everyone slows.
The confident map
folds into uncertainty.
Landmarks soften.
Edges blur.
The future
moves closer to the ground.
In the fog
no one sees very far.
Arguments lose
their long horizons.
Predictions shrink
to the next careful step.
Certainty
becomes quieter.
Some carry lanterns.
Small light
swinging gently
with each movement.
Not powerful enough
to clear the sky.
Only enough
to reveal the path
beneath their feet.
Across the gray distance
another glow appears.
Not the same color.
Not the same shape.
Just another traveler
holding back
the dark.
Lanterns do not merge.
They remain separate
circles of light.
But when they pass
near one another
the fog brightens
for a moment.
Two small radii
touching.
No one demands
the other lantern
change its flame.
It is enough
that both exist.
Enough
that neither walks
completely alone.
The road continues
through weather
no one controls.
Voices carry
only a short distance.
Kindness travels farther.
Sometimes the lanterns
drift apart again.
The fog thickens.
The path bends.
Still, each remembers
that other light
once existed
in the same gray world.
We move forward
this way.
Not perfectly guided.
Not fully certain.
Just careful steps
through shared weather.
Lanterns
in the same fog.
Different hands.
Different flames.
Enough light
to keep walking
without losing
one another.