Scale

On the kitchen table, a brass scale rests,
Its polished arms like quiet sentinels.
A gentle sigh of metal as it settles,
Balancing the world in grammes and ounces.

Feathers of flour tip the pan,
Sugar crystals whisper sweet deceit,
While a lone apple, red and round,
Claims its weight in humble honesty.

Beyond the hearth, the city’s scale looms,
Towers of glass and steel ascend,
Measuring ambition in storeys,
Each floor a tick upon the giant’s ruler.

Yet nature laughs at human measures,
Mountains rise in tonne and tide,
Oceans stretch in leagues unseen,
And time itself — an endless, flowing scale.

So we weigh our hopes, our fears, our dreams,
On pans both tiny and immense,
Finding truth not in the numbers,
But in the balance that we make.