A Gentle Man

He has outgrown the hungers of his younger hands, the bright clamor of applause, the fevered chase.  Now he longs for quieter proofs: the clean click of a door closing on a windy day, light finding the rim of a chipped mug at dawn, the warm give of soil when he presses seed to earth and knows, by touch alone, when to stop.

His regrets do not bleed or bruise. They shimmer. Moments that once rose like weather, a love that could have been braver, a joy he might have leaned into harder, wishing now he had lifted them higher, stood longer in their heat, wrung every possible note from their shining.

He wanted many things, yes, but happiness was not one. For that, his longing was nil.  Contentment came from another craft altogether: taking the sour ache of a day and worrying it until a lesson loosened its hold, learning it carefully, if imperfectly, and smiling anyway at the honest effort to understand.

Once, he found a sparrow chick fallen and trembling.  He cupped it like breath, climbed the tree, returned it to its waiting world.  The smile that followed lit his face, a practiced, well-worn grace,
and he carried it gently among others, wearing satisfaction easily, even as they puzzled over theirs.