FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2492

A conversation is a net for catching—
days
you
me
us
relatives
fire
life
cream corn
hot chocolate
a thing thro’
which to wander
a world662-2025

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© c 2025, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

You say to me, “What does that mean?” I answer, “Your question provides your curiosity.”

:- Doug.

How do I forget these?
Let me count the ways.

:- Doug.

All he really needed to learn in kindergarten—he forgot!

:- Doug.

Conversation is a quest for uncertainty.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2491

We need to heal
We are the only ones to do it

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© c 2025, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

What ought we plant to nourish the eleventh generation? What throw in the fire—to destroy or anneal?

:- Doug.

Life is better with wrinkles.

:- Doug.

What do we do about the high plateau? Is it only for enjoyment?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2490

The dark and living alley
two rows of bushes tall
a tunnel behind and between
neighborhood houses
where as children
in secret we played
at life in earnest
safe from
and in
our parents’ eyes
What can we, then?

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© c 2025, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

We can talk for them, of them, we can bring up their images in our words and heads. Images, visual of course, but also of taste, smell, touch, sound. What is the dignity of each individually? Can we look into this person’s eyes?

:- Doug.

Now we enter the long-burning fire.

:- Doug.

What is the dignity, the worth, of any grandchild?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2489

When you catch a fish, and release—have you changed her life for ever? Do you imagine?

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© c 2025, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

I’m in love with this chapter—it is so delicate and generous I hesitate to touch it, to pull back its sheer.

:- Doug.

What comes out of a person!
Writers for instance:
Josh, so masterful
Yvonne, so scent-catching
David, burly bearded, so sensitive
James, locking you in
A darkened theater,
Doug, flying guessingly
Read. Hear
Rivers gushing unguessable
Under mountain ranges

:- Doug.

“But always changed.” Can we say that about our conversations? Do we seek that?

:- Doug.

Who are you as a person? As a family? How do you fit? What is to be your role? What are you curious to find out about yourself?

:- Doug.

Will I resorb fire?

:- Doug.

What are the mysteries of the fire?

:- Doug.

Soul is a word
vague, nebulous
instead shiver

:- Doug.

Am I coming awake
Or just turning over
To grill on the other side?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2488

That we don’t raise our voices to his antics testifies against us that we don’t value, don’t reflect on, don’t exercise, our, nor our fellow humans, freedoms.

Please pass it on.

© c 2025, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com