FootprintsintheWind.com

Change of consciousness
is
strangeness
movement
not results but shapes
concrete juxtaposition
startler

:- Doug.

Story + Time → New People

:- Doug.

Making memories
how sweet the sound
of packing a suitcase
when nature
is stripping you
to bone
and waning breath

:- Doug.

So much grey
so little silver
snow and deep up on the roof
but fire in the hearth?
Dare we inquire after morsels?
Old we have aplenty
elders but few
Shh who might some of us
barely notice wafting
up the flue
becoming ancestors?

:- Doug.

A poem once written
is an unreliable
arrow on a sign
rusting
telling which way you
went
but not the valuable stuff

:- Doug.

Are you Google
knowing without knowing
Are you a Google lawyer
knowing answers and hows
lively and responsive
without touching
All those years
lived without living
All those lives
you have strummed
without having the chords
reverberate to your spine
Have you watched
without watching
that sap that flows
in that family
and yours
and that richer stuff
that courses
in root system
Have you been without being
what precisely is your worth
and for how long and for whom?

:- Doug.

As elder caring lawyers we are privileged witnesses. We also may find a profound responsibility to witness for our people. To mirror. To open. Maybe there is a different room over there on the other side of the looking glass.

:- Doug.

Don’t die with the TV on.

:- Doug.

Wonder how felt change in consciousness relates to reflexive writing?

:- Doug.

And Moses said, “I don’t need to raise no stinking stick. God will part the waters.” And Jonah said, “I don’t need to preach to Ninevah. God will turn their hearts.” And Noah said, “I don’t need to build an arc. God will provide.”

:- Doug.

I set before you death and life. Choose. Choose well, for you choose for the generations.

:- Doug.

Do more not-done-ing.

:- Doug.

I want to be conscious in my dying.

:- Doug.

You have the gift of having seen this long-term care thing in many guises and appearances. You can see long view over their case, over their needs, and the outlines of where this will come out the other side. You recognize the fog they are in, and how it can keep them feeling lost and confined. So you have a gift you can give them to share: that this is fog in the valley, nothing more, that the fog will lift, and when and how it might burn off as the day goes on. This is the gift of reflection.

:- Doug.

Last October, I was in the observation car of The Capitol Limited train, as it came around the mountain. There, for the space of few ticks of the clock, I was witness. The early sun just caught the tops of the forest on the distant side. There below were the brilliant white tops of the fog, covering the valley. This is a view to remember…and to reflect upon. Why do I yet recall this moment? What does it say about me? If you have had such a passing moment, what does it say about you?

:- Doug.

Today: What did you give yourself? What did you give the generations?

:- Doug.

Poetry is not about
the making of it
but the living of it

:- Doug.

God as starter dough!

:- Doug.

Write about a minor event from yesterday: pick one other that or who was involved: what did you notice about that other? Why did you do what you did or didn’t do? Why again? Why again? What does this say about you? Why did you pick that event? What question are you avoiding?

:- Doug.

Make a list of 29 things and events from yesterday, just to limber up your writing exploring side.

:- Doug.

I will not talk about poetry
I will talk in poetry

:- Doug.

Move beyond thought
to think

:- Doug.

Your most creative time might be when you feel least creative.

:- Doug.