This morning I was reading this Kay Ryan short poem --  Ideal Audience. It’s only fourteen lines, but it hit me like a secret that was waiting for me:

"just
one free citizen—
maybe not alive
now even—who
will know with
exquisite gloom
that only we two
ever found this room."

That line—“only we two ever found this room”—made me sit still for a while.

It reminded me of those poems by Walt Whitman where he’s supposedly writing to “America” or “the multitudes,” but really, he’s whispering to you. The one who happens to be listening. The one who gets it. The one who’s still enough to feel the breath between the words.

There’s something about that dream—the dream of an artist—not to reach the masses, but to make one true connection. Just one. It’s comforting, really. It takes the pressure off. You're not trying to go viral. You're trying to go real.

Kay Ryan isn’t interested in “scattered legions” or “a dozen from a single region.” She’s not putting on a show. She's just leaving the door to a quiet room slightly ajar. You can come in, if you know how to knock.

That intimacy—that quiet knowing—reminded me of a Shabad by Kabir:

"Hum tum beech bhayo nahi koyi"
No one comes between you and me.
There is no groom like you,
no soul-bride like me.
Kabir says—who cares about people!

That last line always makes me smile. Who cares about people! It's not rude. It’s just honest. When the connection is real, you don’t need a crowd to validate it.

Guru Arjan echoes the same spirit in a more devotional tone:

"Ja tu mere val hai"
If you are on my side,
who else do I need?

It’s the same room. The same whisper. The same dream. Whether it’s Kay Ryan or Kabir or Guru Arjan or Whitman, the artist—or the soul—is just trying to reach the one.

Maybe that one is you.

Maybe you’re the one reading this, nodding quietly, knowing we’ve both found this room. And maybe, like Kay Ryan says, “not alive now even”— maybe it doesn’t even matter when.

Just that we found it. Just that we’re here.

Together.