The Silent Ledger

 

A person enters this world carrying debts, spends a lifetime trying to repay them, and leaves it with some debts forever unpaid.

Debt came uninvited into my door,

A silent blessing wrapped in war;

Fate placed it gently in my hand,

To teach me how alone to stand.

It was not born of reckless pride,

Nor foolish dreams I chose to ride;

It was the cost of holding high

A life that would not bow or die.

The empty stomach owes no gold,

The idle heart no burden holds;

For those who carry none to feed,

No creditor records their need.

Then who is debtor, if not I-

Who begs for hope beneath the sky?

When desperate hands reach out for bread,

Fine words are left unsaid instead.

Philosophies fall faint and still,

Before the urgency of will;

For hunger speaks with louder breath

Than every polished truth on earth.

My wants are countless as the sand

That slips unnoticed through the hand;

Yet I know well, when all is done,

I'll leave this world with carrying none.

A handful of dust is all I'll be,

Where debts dissolve in memory;

The wealth I chased, the dues I paid,

Will vanish with my mortal shade.

Debt is not numbers inked on pages,

Nor chains that bind through passing ages;

It is the quiet price we pay

To keep our dignity each day.

For every soul begins in debt-

To love received, to tears once wept;

To mother's grace and father's pain,

To sun and soil, to wind and rain.

We live indebted, day by day,

Repaying life in our own way;

Some debts are paid with sweat and years,

Some only with remembered tears.

And when at last our breath is gone,

The ledger still will carry on;

For every human, great or small,

Leaves unpaid debts beyond them all.