For Will Tooke
Some things are better left turning,
like a stone in the river,
smoothed but never settled.
You have held this mystery
in your hands for ten years—
felt its weight, traced its edges,
let it shape the quiet corners of your mind.
Now, you let it remain
just as it is.
Not everything must be solved.
Not everything should.
And yet, to have been part of this—
to have left a mark, however small,
on the shifting tide of another’s thoughts,
is an honor beyond words.
What we create, what we leave behind,
we rarely know where it will land.
But sometimes, like a whispered secret,
it lingers, it grows, it matters.