The Lantern and the Unwritten Map

There are days when time feels more like a wall than a river—
each hour a stone that must be climbed,
each minute a grit in the teeth.

But sometimes, beyond the wall,
a lantern waits on a branch we almost forgot was there.
Its glow does not erase the struggle;
it only says: yes, you endured. Yes, you arrived.

Perhaps that is all a lantern is ever meant to do—
not to show the whole map,
but to remind us the path still extends beyond the wall,
and that we are still moving.