FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1687

It’s seldom a question of knowing when to say when, but of working it out. When I write a poem there are a hundred right ways to say what needs to be said. My primary urge is to express the thing new to me. Then I want to say it well—so you will want to pay attention—and so you will carry it further. Because of these hundred right ways there is no perfect wording, so I have to choose to say when the end has come, when to let it go on its way. When it comes my time to die, perhaps it will be like this.

A word too far in a poem
Can undo the life it brings

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1686

Glowing the ember turns from red

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1685

Than even this—
Work eat sleep
clean house walk dog
get up do it again

—But even than this—
make love hug your grandchildren
read a book till way past midnight
go to church pray meditate

—Than even this—
people want to know
people somehow know
there is more

Mystery: twinkle in your child’s eyes
Intimacy: hushed conversation lying together looking into the sea of stars
Poetry: saying the open hands and creaking doors of your soul

—Than even this—
What can we say?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1684

You are related to
say 100 others
take you away
and some of
their relations fall
in this way among a host
you are the center
of the universe
and without you
the universe collapses
becomes different
and this one ends

remember that you interpret
your world into existence
it is only out there
plus
in here
and in this way as well
you at the center
without you nil

who are you?
actually you are not
not at all
you are a knot
in the continual
folding and unfolding
fabric we call
universe
once again
you at the center
of no thing
the buzz of the bee

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1683

Measurement
is smaller than
reality

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1682

Get out of the way
Surrender witty
Let go making the big noise
Sacrifice outsmarting
There is plenty of you
Infinite infinity too
Do truly the next thing
True reveals you
Quietly now, become one with this
All happens between—O adjective! O verb!
Let the good come through

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1680

These are the days
That must happen to you
You will leave your best untold
You will love but not enough
You will have tears too many
A sparkling night before you go
A ray of perfect light
And your prophecy you might at last make true

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1679

Seldom will you get an answer more profound than your question.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1678

You are not that powerful
Another’s pain is greater
But not greater than your power of being with

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1677

I’m human—that’s all the credentials I require. I notice what I notice.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1676

For some of us
aches of aging are spiritual
for some of us
grieving and loss are exercises
a chance to do this work
for all of us

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1675

We cannot restore sanity to the world
It never was sane

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1674

In elderhood, our etherealization becomes a prime activity—we spread our now much larger far-seeing selves as widely as even cosmos. In past, some of ourselves evaporated as we worked; now this is the work.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1673

Holy is empty, and the task of the prophet, the hero, is to merge, and then emerge back to the world with this boon. The boon? Emptiness. Freedom. Meeting. Hmm… Meeting is part of emptiness. Had not thought of that before. It is not that emptiness is a prerequisite, but that meeting only takes place in emptiness. The more empty, the more possible meeting. This might be why grief is a stronger more foundational meeting place than celebration: it is more empty.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1672

While I was eating last night, one diner kept telling people his elation at the day’s political news. One guy he was talking to said that there might be a change in state law to allow “someone like me” to carry a concealed weapon without a license. At that, this diner got up with his back turned to me, and held open one side of his coat.

This frightened me. What is it about this quiet Thai restaurant that makes someone so afraid he must carry a weapon? How much does the presence of a weapon increase the chances of gunsmoke? Or bravado leading to gunplay?

I don’t think I want to go to that restaurant again, nor perhaps even that town.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1671

It takes a whole life to die.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1670

I like butterflies. Not only beautiful, they are effective at the same time. They show us work can be beauty and grace.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1669

Linux is filled with playfulness
Take two programs that do about the same thing
one is called more
the other less
the one that does more is less

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1668

All an elder’s got to work with
Is what’s a step further
Than wits

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1667

Intertwined are we
Sent out beyond our untangling
How shall we be with each other?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1666

Why do bad times, deaths, floods, fires, and collisions bring us together in profound ways? Perhaps because they give us an opportunity to do what’s in our blood: take care of one another. This is more needful to us than our own food, clothing, and shelter.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1665

An hygrometer-barometer is my nose! Every change in air pressure and dryness of the air registers!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1662

There’s more at stake here than we yet understand.

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