The Quiet Flame

They do not shout from rooftops,

nor carve their names in stone,

yet in the breath between chaos and calm,

they live —

a quiet flame that burns alone.

Not kings, not saints,

but mothers who boil rice

in borrowed kitchens,

fathers whose hands are cracked with dust,

yet hold dignity like a crown.

They rise before the world wakes,

not to win, but to give —

a glass of water to the thirsty,

a word of hope to the weary,

a roof, a path, a prayer, a seed.

They are not written into history books,

but the pulse of history beats in their veins.

Their truths are not poetic metaphors,

but rice sacks split to share

when hunger knocks at the neighbor’s door.

In the village lane where schools are few,

a girl teaches her siblings from torn pages,

and in the digital din of neon towns,

a boy plants saplings between broken tiles,

asking no permission from the world

to make it better.

These are the unnamed architects

of what is still good —

men who build without applause,

women who give without being seen,

youth who protest with presence,

not rage.

Their greatness is not loud,

but it echoes —

in the plate filled despite poverty,

in the hand extended during storms,

in the mask worn not out of fear,

but love for another’s breath.

And still, they do not ask for more —

just a sliver of sky,

a clean street,

a job with dignity,

a school with windows,

and a world that listens.

They live where the headlines never look —

in rain-soaked alleys,

beneath unfinished roofs,

on farms scorched by changing skies.

Yet in their struggle,

there is no surrender.

Only forward.

They are the poetry of resilience,

the literature of love in action,

the religion of responsibility,

the philosophy of being human.

Call them not ordinary.

Call them not poor.

Call them the blueprint

for the world we forgot to build.

So when the time comes

to define a life well-lived,

do not look to the crowned or the canonized.

Look for the ones who healed without hands,

taught without titles,

loved without loudness.

For they are the quiet flame

that warms a broken world —

and it is through them

that life

becomes

exemplary.