The Pebble Left Behind

In the written lake song,
one pebble stays
where the fictional player found it.

The story has already offered
frustration,
an awkward beginning,
a little success.

Now it offers
the choice
not to turn success
into another demand.

That is a different ending
from a podium
and a crowd calling for more.

No victory speech.
No verdict on a life.

Just the last attempt
remaining possible
without becoming necessary.

The conversation asks for varied feeling,
and this makes room
for satisfaction on a smaller scale:
a grin rather than a blaze,
effort that can loosen its grip.

It belongs to the written story.
The recording still needs
a fuller check of what was sung.
Neither its length nor its level
can certify the moment.

But the choice on the page
is clear enough to carry forward.

A creative method can ask
what worked,
what changed,
what deserves another try,

without asking a small result
to judge the whole
of someone's worth.

The journal can keep
both the attempt
and the decision to stop.

Another page can begin later.

For this one,
let the imagined player leave
with something learned,

and let the shore
keep its pebble.