The Grain's Last Steadfastness

Under a placid boil,
an empire of curving strands,
every stalk awaits its kiss,
the touch that will not trouble.
It is no surrender yet,
no soft yielding with no echo,
but a sinew of sunlight and recall,
a boundary where time will play.

It holds the dignity of the earth that held it,
the obstinacy of the seed reborn,
a spirit that, though lost,
whispers and will never cease.
A pact sealed ’twixt the water and the flame,
a secret held deep in its core,
before it becomes story in one bite,
an instant of forever, not a moan.