Snow Crocus
By Dave
They come to my door with their tongues aflame,
Smoke curling like incense from each ostentatious syllable.
Eyes bright as struck flint, scattering sparks
Against the unyielding stone of my silence.
They call themselves seekers,
Yet don the threadbare garb of Sophists—
Robes stitched from borrowed philosophies,
Frayed at the hem by half-digested doctrines.
They invoke gods as if recalling old drinking companions,
Toast Epictetus over shallow musings, mock the Buddha
With ironic detachment and performative scorn,
Plucking wisdom like unripe fruit—
Bitter on the tongue, discarded before digestion.
With thumbs calloused by relentless scrolling,
They conjure prophets from the dim glow of TikTok reels,
Exchanging the rigor of Plato for the convenience of algorithms,
Proclaiming themselves sages between flickering notifications.
Their minds are bustling marketplaces of intellectual trinkets,
Bartering platitudes for profundity,
Trading in the counterfeit currency of echoes,
Never daring to mint a thought of original weight.
They quote Croesus' wealth with studied aplomb,
Then boast of cryptocurrency conquests in the same breath;
Viewing existence as a collection of life hacks and shortcuts,
Mistaking acceleration for enlightenment,
And attention for the hard-earned gravity of wisdom.
I administer no examinations.
The robin already sings the curriculum.
The rain composes homilies upon my eaves.
And the crocus—ah, the crocus—
Splits winter’s frost with nothing but grace.
The mountain does not shout its philosophy;
It waits with immutable patience for ears attuned to silence.
Yet they rattle on,
Their restless footsteps unskilled
In the sacred art of leaving quietly.
And so I remain,
The keeper of unopened doors,
Observing as they descend again into the valley,
Weighted by the sheer mass of their borrowed words,
Hollow still, and hungering for understanding.