FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2524

The point is not the length
of conversation
nor the mere dropping
of veils
More
other
taking in
each of other
—finding us—
of same substance
and holy

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2523

My brain is not me
It only tells me so

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2522

“God,” the pray-er began
“We just. . .”
As he went on I counted,
Collecting his “justs:”
Surely a just prayer
But let not your teeth
Get stuck
In justice
Or pretending to little requests
There is a hidden more
Back behind all those “justs:”
He did not trust his god,
Had to put in his order
From some imagined menu
With only some delights
For his unlearned palate
Imagining a limited god.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2521

What if snowflakes did not land where they belonged—had to get up and walk or roll over to their rightful place?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2520

Too small to float much
we, particles of snow,
how inconsequential
to winds moving us to now
where-we’re-supposed-to-be
in days we lock arms, melt
what is our lasting work?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2519

Share it
before it is perfect

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2518

I chose to name my stroke “Beneficent.” It is good for me. I take it as part of my life—integral to me, same as the day after a child is born, the new parents cannot imagine, cannot remember, a time they were not a three. Indeed, in some real way perhaps, they were always on that trajectory. So I have always been headed for my stroke, and my life after. And you and your friend have always been leaning into one another.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2517

[Note: Friends, you have experienced an interlude in Footprints in the Wind^sm because, on January 15, 2026, I had a stroke. There have been few if any lasting problems. The main reason for the break in publishing them has been all the tests and appointments after! So I am back and trust you will enjoy these posts. As always, I welcome your responses and comments week to week. Thanks for reading and conversing with me!]

A writer needs to be a meanderthal.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2516

It’s not that I realize time is short and I need to cram in more trips and more hot chocolates. I do realize the value of moments lost or thrown away with the word, “Later.” I do live the life I want and it is filled richly with persons. Every person I chance upon is important to me and I am curious. They might just be a person with whom I can find our one face—and let’s act upon it when the opportunity shows up.

In the same way, I want to finish the book in the next three weeks, my “high risk period,” my “high rich period.”

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2515

We are not so afraid of AI
as of ourselves
unexplored

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2514

Trees do not live so very long
not so long a’ tall
if one counts their day
as one trip around old Sol’
their sleep time when earth leans away
their work day when it leans in
and we the little
two-legged ants
scurrying about
oblivious
because trees do not snore!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2513

Is it good we don’t have words for some things?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2512

I realized that I am living the life I want to be living. I have a loving family, all good persons. I am doing the work I want to be doing. I am conversing with and meeting people and doing a few things for others directly, as well as this large thing, The Last Hot Chocolate, for my human family writ large.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2511

The sweetness of this planet, O!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2510

Curiously, I was placid in my spirits, tending a little to elation, the whole time in the hospital. What is the right word? Tranquil, serene, gentled, free, peace, content, blissful? Yes, blissful comes close: grace and favor, gentle and kind, in addition to merriment and happiness. There was a sense of dawning happiness. Even though the one people mover managed to lose my note cards (I had two good poems, and who knows what else). In the days since I have felt my mood being more and more toward the joyous side.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2509

Anything that happens to others can happen to me.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2508

One effect of conversation is to change the speed of our thinking, especially when compared to thinking alone. It slows and speeds. Also it extends thinking in breadth and direction, so it encompasses more. We can morph these effects into purposes and practices.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2507

He’s the Cranky Old Man In Chief.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2506

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 so bewildered
Read. Hear
Rivers gushing unguessable
Under mountain ranges

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2505

May we be kind.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2504

Bent old man leans
farther over a piano
in a railway station
playing lively complex tunes
Someone has taken effort

and time from life to video
Soon a younger grey-haired
man joins in on the
right side keys
his watch on his right wrist

The tunes get livelier the
people come around mostly
stay take pictures tap toes
Maybe this liveliness
changes someone’s track

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2503

To be kind to someone is to converse.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2502

We have to run the risk that what we say and think and do will be to good effects for the generations. It may just be true in this here and now.

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