By Dave
I carry little that is not a question.
A notebook. A pen. A road not yet decided.
And now, this small spoon, shaped by a friend’s patient hand,
curved like the margin of a page
waiting to be filled.
It rests beside my journal
as if it, too, were keeping record—
of roadside coffee, of campfire stew,
of the quiet sacrament of ordinary days
that pass unannounced yet refuse to be forgotten.
A traveler learns quickly
that usefulness is a form of grace.
What we carry shapes what we notice.
A spoon teaches attention:
to warmth held briefly,
to hunger answered simply,
to the humility of enough.
Wood remembers the tree,
and the hand remembers the friend.
Between them, I move—
crossing distances that can be measured
only in shared meals and written lines.
So I keep this small companion near,
not as ornament but as promise:
that wherever I go,
friendship will arrive before me,
already waiting at the table.