coins that gleam like captured sun, yet fade,
fabrics folded soft against the years
until the moth in silent hunger feeds,
its wings a whisper over silken threads
that once proclaimed our worth. Rust creeps slow
along the iron chests and silver bowls,
a patient verdigris that claims its due,
while thieves, with shadowed steps and sharpened tools,
pierce walls we built to guard what cannot last.
All this we gather, stone by stone, in fear
that empty hands betray an empty soul,
yet every hoard becomes a monument
to transience, a testament to dust.
The Teacher spoke beneath the Galilean sky,
where sparrows wheeled and lilies wore their bloom
without a single anxious thought of gain.
Do not, He said, lay up for yourselves
these treasures here, where every element
conspires against possession—moth and rust,
the thief at midnight, flood and fire and time.
Instead, direct your labor to the place
no corrosion touches, no intruder breaches,
where light itself is currency and grace
the only coin that never loses value.
What treasures then ascend to heaven's store?
Not bars of metal, not the counted wealth
of kingdoms built on sand, but quieter things:
a cup of water given in the heat
to one whose tongue was parched with suffering;
the hand extended to the fallen one
when pride would have passed by; the whispered prayer
that rises like incense through the unseen veil;
forgiveness offered freely, seventy times seven;
the widow's mite that weighed more heavily
than all the gold of Caesar's treasury.
These are the riches that endure beyond
the crumbling arch and fallen column's shade,
untouched by seasons, safe from human greed.
They multiply in secret, like the seed
that falls into the ground and dies to live,
bearing fruit a hundredfold in fields
we cannot yet survey with mortal eyes.
And here the deeper mystery unfolds:
the heart pursues what it has named as prize.
Where treasure lies, there also dwells the will,
the longing, the imagination's flight.
If gold and garment hold the central place,
the soul becomes a prisoner of their weight,
chained to anxiety that gnaws by night,
awake to every rumor of loss.
But fix the treasure where the Father reigns,
in mercy's work, in justice done in love,
in union with the One who gave Himself,
then heart and hope ascend on steady wings,
freed from the gravity of fleeting things.
Consider Christ, who emptied every claim
to earthly store, who laid aside the robe
of splendor for a borrowed stable's straw,
who walked the dust with nothing but the call
to seek and save what wandered far from home.
He stored no palace, gathered no estate,
yet in His poverty He purchased all—
the pearl beyond all price, the kingdom vast,
the inheritance that fades not, spoils not,
reserved in light where no thief approaches near.
So let us learn the art of heavenly gain:
to give what earth would clutch, to loose what binds,
to count as wealth the moments spent in grace,
the kindness sown in soil of human need.
Each act of love becomes a coin of light,
each sacrifice a deposit in the vault
where angels keep the ledger of the just.
And when the final dawn dissolves the veil,
the heart, long schooled to seek the unseen good,
will find its true possession waiting there—
not gathered goods, but God Himself, the sum
of every treasure worth the name of true.
In this exchange the soul discovers rest:
to lose the lesser is to gain the great,
to empty hands is to receive the all.
Where treasure is, there let the heart abide,
secure in heaven's unassailable keep,
forever held where moth and rust hold no sway,
and thieves find nothing left to steal away.
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