pause

Waiting with Folded Wings

“He’ll join in five minutes,” the coordinator whispered, eyes fixed on her phone.

The room was already full. Forty chairs. Forty expectant faces. My slides were ready. My microphone was clipped. Five minutes stretched into ten. Someone in the front row adjusted his notebook. A woman near the aisle checked her watch. I stood there, holding a marker I didn’t need, rehearsing an opening I suddenly didn’t believe in.

I’ve done this hundreds of times. Boardrooms in different cities. Workshops with ambitious teams. Executive rooms where the air smells faintly of carpet cleaner and authority. Normally, I move easily into those spaces. I know how to carry the room. I know how to make people lean forward.

That morning, I couldn’t.

3

The Pause

What if the wind, worn out, took pause,
Ceased its dance, ignored nature’s laws?
Have you seen a bird, with wings untied,
Slumber all day, letting dreams reside?

What if the plant, in quiet defiance,
Shunned its toil, broke its alliance?
Why is it you, who tires and sighs,
Seeking sparks to make life rise?

Is it the burden of thought we bear,
The weight of choice, a fleeting care?
Or a casual rift with life’s grand art,
Misunderstanding the rhythm at heart?
2

Pause

Not divine, nor mere clay, in life’s sway,
Neither beast nor void, in this cosmic play,
Greed casts shadows, but grace lights the way,
Life’s canvas, woven in each shared day.

Pause, let gratitude bloom, in nature’s embrace,
In every whisper, in every trace,
Humanity’s melody, in each soul’s space,
A part of the whole, let love leave its trace.
2