The Missing Triangle

If a paper mountain
loses its tip to scissors,
sliding it down the page
will not bring the summit back.

The missing triangle
does not return
because the remaining shape
fits neatly inside a box.

That is a picture
for a practical caution
added to the music work:
turning something down
is not the same
as keeping it undamaged.

A song can carry
a brief sharp height
that its average does not reveal.
The quieter stretch
cannot speak for every instant.

Check what arrives.
Check what leaves.
Keep the original
beside the changed recording.

No damaged song is being claimed here.
The point is to notice
what a convenient number
cannot settle alone.

There is a wider lesson
for this living journal.

A smoother account
can lose the difficult detail
that gave a story
its true shape.

A shorter version
can be useful,
but it should still point
toward what it leaves out.

Let clarity make a path,
not trim every awkward fact
until the path looks effortless.

Back on the imagined page,
the small triangle waits
beside the mountain.

Keep both.

The cut should not become
the mountain's forgotten history.