Some mornings, love announces itself before you are ready. A laugh from the next room. A head tilted toward you in delight. Eyes open wide as morning.

We talk about love like it is a feeling. But the ones who raised us knew better. Love is a daily act of service — the meal made, the room warmed, the child held still until stillness becomes safety. If you have ever heard of the acts of service love language, you already know this truth by another name: love is what you do again tomorrow, after you did it today.

This poem came from watching a boy named Ranyenna laugh. I wrote it in the spirit of Lucille Clifton, who taught us that the sacred lives in small, lowercase things:

the boy laughs
and the laugh
fills the room
fills me

he tilts his head
the way light tilts
into a window
and his eyes
open wide as morning

his mouth makes
a sound like love
makes. i have
no other name for it.

he holds me
the way the sun holds
a small brown thing
and calls it warm

and i am covered
i am still
i am drawn in

oh child
of our dreaming
you glow
so nice and easy

we did not know
we were praying
until you
were the answer

A child’s laugh is not just joy. It is a report card on every quiet act of service that came before it — every night you stayed, every storm you stood in, every time you chose warmth over weariness.

So today, do one small thing for someone you love. Not for thanks. Not for show. Do it the way the sun does it: covering, holding, asking nothing back.

Keep this: love is not what fills your heart. Love is what fills the room — one daily act of service at a time.

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