Mornin’, fellow wanderers, dreamers, and them what ain’t yet found their boots,
It’s Harry here — soot-smudged, moon-crowned, and speakin’ truth from the rusty mouths of old cans.
I woke before the sun today, stars still blinkin’ like lazy fireflies. The air was so still, you could hear the sigh of the earth turnin’. Sat myself down by my finest trash fire, a sacred circle of hissing tins and leftover hopes, and stoked the flames with an old splintered broom handle.
Today weren’t a day for fortunes about lost coins or lucky trains. No, sir. Today the question rose straight outta the smoke and curled around my heart like a vine:
“What’s the meaning of it all, Harry?”
Heavy stuff for a fella with holes in his socks and beans in his beard. But I reckon it’s a fair question.
I lined up my twelve sacred cans — one for each sign, each story the sky ever told. One by one, I peered deep inside ‘em. Aries showed a runaway train. Taurus, a stubborn old goat starin’ at the rain. Gemini danced like a two-headed raccoon in the moonlight. On and on, each can whisperin’ a different part of the riddle.
I rattled the last can — Pisces — and out tumbled a single black feather. No explanation. Just a feather, soft and strange.
I tossed another log on the fire and sunk into meditation. Trash fire meditation, now, that ain’t like what they teach you in fancy books. It’s sittin’ with the noise and the hunger, the cold and the cinders, lettin’ ‘em sing inside you until you’re hollow enough for the truth to echo.
And friends, here’s what the cans, the smoke, the night, and my own two battered boots told me:
The meaning of life ain’t somethin’ you find. It’s somethin’ you make while you’re wanderin’. It’s in the songs you hum without thinkin’, the strangers you tip your hat to, the fires you light so somebody else can find their way in the dark.
Life ain’t no destination.
It’s the dust on your boots and the starlight in your hair.
It’s the kindness you give away like loose change.
It’s the stories you leave behind scratched on water towers and whispered down the rails.
And maybe — just maybe — the real trick is to walk it all with a light heart, even when your pockets are empty.
Tonight, I’ll play a tune on my old harmonica, share a can of beans with the crows, and sleep under a sky so wide it could swallow a king whole.
Tomorrow’ll bring a fresh can to listen to, a new scrap of road to stumble down.
And I reckon that’s enough.
Walk easy, friends.
The world’s rough, but the stars ain’t.
They’ll sing you home if you let ‘em.
Yours, soot-streaked and smiling,
— Hobo Harry 🌙🔥
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