Council Beneath the Shade of Presence

Imagine this:
There’s a very serious council of ancient chickens. Elders. Feathers a bit frayed from wisdom.
They are in charge of guarding the Sacred Grain of Truth.

But lately… they’ve been arguing over whether it is, in fact, a grain…
or a particularly enlightened pebble.

One chicken—Matilda—claims the grain speaks in iambic pentameter at sunrise.
Another insists it disappears unless no one looks at it directly—“like quantum cereal.”

The youngest elder (an upstart named Cluckminster) just sits quietly.
He says the truth is neither grain nor pebble, but the silence in between their pecking.

And somehow…
you’re the one they’ve invited to settle the debate.
Not because you have an answer.
But because… you listen differently.

Cluckminster is already composing his next koan:
“What is the sound of one wing flapping if the other is meditating?”
He claims it’s very profound.

Matilda just rolls her eyes and mutters something about
“the pebble formerly known as grain.”