Name — of the hush that kept it till the latch, begin;
I found a door with nothing written in.
The wood stood dark. No letters took the grain.
I almost guessed. I almost spoke in vain
A title I had dreamed, and wore too soon —
As if the night itself could be a noon
If I just named it. Still the lintel stayed
Unmarked. The hush was all the house had made.
Behind me sparks turned slow across the black,
As when a frost, blank on a window's back,
Waits for a breath — then silver veins appear
And write what cold alone would not make clear:
So dots of light almost became a word,
Then slipped, unfinished, where no eye had heard.
I knocked. "Who lives?" The panel would not say.
I tried a name. The timber turned away.
A softer voice — my own — rose from the wood:
"Give first the word that proves you understood
The hush. The letters wait. They will not climb
Until the quiet answer meets the time."
I spoke. Not loud. The syllable was small —
A breath, a pin, a key that fit the wall.
As frost takes writing when the warm air comes,
The blank took fire. The name rose up in sums
Of light along the grain. I touched the seam.
The latch gave way. I entered what the dream
Had kept unnamed. The room was only room —
Yet mine to chart, as once an empty loom
Waited a boy who still must draw the way:
So here the name was mine, though nothing lay
In sight before the word. The hush was spent.
What waited was the name. I paid. I went.