FootprintsintheWind.com

I am poetic mind
I am poetic heart

:- Doug.

To surrender is not to dissolve
To disappear is not surrender
When surrender is gift of essence

:- Doug.

Do you talk or
Do you converse?
Which is worse?
Or for that matter, verse?
Everything is made of energy
Everything is turning, dancing
Except talk
Stands in the corner
& refuses to touch

:- Doug.

As long as babies are born, our
social capital is rejuvenating

:- Doug.

No, you said,
and fought off tears
—how dreaded the diagnosis
But now I ask you
be gentle with yourself
say how—then say how again—
you would
like to see this
ending

:- Doug.

Before you visit your lawyer for your Will, visit your journaling pad. Complete this sentence: My daughter, my son, I want for you….

:- Doug.

I am here this morning. That is what matters.

:- Doug.

A large bird circles lazily overhead
a squirrel plays on the lawn
but if the squirrel had seen
would it have been
so lackadaisical?
Or if the hawk had been hungry
would the squirrel now be?
And we, do we look to the future,
do we know we are invited, here, to live?

:- Doug.

If the economy is not going to return to what it was, what can we make of it now? If this state hangs around, what do we do with the do-do we’re in? If we can no longer live how we have lived, how then shall we live?

:- Doug.

Butterfly zags across this little pond
butterflies travel more quickly
than we imagine
what speed is our imagining?

:- Doug.

I want to see into the souls
of people in the next century
have them see into mine

:- Doug.

There are at least two ways to face and meet the world, and they only incidentally are connected with gender: one seeks to separate and control; the other seeks to be intimate and intertwined.

I think that the second is the larger, more complete picture.

What happens when, after the child bearing and rearing years, the two become more as one? There is work to be done! There is a place for both, as Buber says, and yet we cannot have life without the second.

There is likely something larger than both, and making real that larger is the work we have to do as elders.

:- Doug.

Conversation outlives
this moment
rings bells
strikes notes
outlives these lives

:- Doug.

The holy otherness of God
Draws us out to meet
The sundry others around us

:- Doug.

Now be here I’ve heard
But where is here?
Inside my head? my heart?
Attending the air in & out?
This room?
The immediate world outside this room?
The traffic?
The circle a half mile round?
Our town?
Our planet?
Our world?
More still?
The people about?
The people about whom I know little?
In the presence of presence

:- Doug.

The worse pain
Is the pain you’ve
Inflicted on another

:- Doug.

I do not know, I cannot, uncertainty
angel or God, stops me here and turns me
towards the future I’d not choose but must
Certainty I’d always sought turns out
to be chimera, enemy
With this uncertainty I must grapple
exact a blessing in exchange for my wound

:- Doug.

Grandparent to grandchild questions:

—What do you think the birds see when they look down at us?

—What do the trees see?

—What does your angel think about you?

:- Doug.

A breath, the world
does not forever get larger
in turns it must release
must stop
before it dies to breathe again

:- Doug.

A poem is a way
of setting free
a moment

:- Doug.

Say surprising things
before you leave for work then
go into your day and
say some more

:- Doug.

One of the Garden of Eden stories has woman coming out of man; common experience shows it the other way around. Ought we be curious about this?

:- Doug.

Wrestle with life: this has been the prescription ever since Jacob wrestled with JHWH. We have been given a limp in the part that holds us up, and we will not let the other go till he bless us.

:- Doug.