FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2371

Sleep long and prosper.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2370

The sky returns to blackness
Always returns to blackness
But the stars!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2369

Write less
Glance more

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2368

The flood between us
We pour one into the other
Each is bottomless to receive
Each has endless holy to billow
A leaf falls on the churning
On the leaf a lacewing
Calling in words we know not

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2367

What would it be to converse artfully?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2366

Conversing we form a moire
not even a pattern
see?
But we see not
don’t have to see

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2365

Allow your friend’s humanity to touch you; then allow this touch to be visible to others.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2364

Every bridge
is reflected on waters
and a path toward waters

Every conversation
is reflected on one another
and a path toward each

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2363

Default to wonder.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2362

Dōgen advises:
Investigate mountains thoroughly.
To investigate is the work of mountains.
I say your friend is your mountain;
do not tell her.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2361

A conversation is a living beast
It snarls, it bites
Its eyes fix on yours, knowing

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2360

I’ve been writing to you all along as if the person opposite you is a sparkling being, full of wit and creativity and art. But he’s not. He’s complicated, confusing, moody, and boring. Most days. Until. There was you. All you have to work with is an extract of reality. All you ever have.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2359

We are here to complicate this narrative. Where is here? This conversation. What narrative? First, that of your friend.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2358

Kronos and Kairos
gods you are
who touch but do not own
time—you we made up
to figure out a little
of what we might yet mean
when we say time
But time is our larger god
our over-god
whom we also made up
to worship

Mine—another larger god
to deceive us
to tell us of belonging
as if two ephemeral things
ever hooked each other ever
Some stories it seems
we tell ourselves
to make it through this night
or this millennium
or to build this whatever this
which may not outlast
any of us
but it is mine

Mind—a fabric
woven every day
weaving, woven, unwoven
every song
every prayer
every conversation
constructed, constructing
itself
person
world
Mind does not exist
if
we do not weave
brain grows from
little gametes meeting
but mind’s made up
and so never made up

Time, mine, mind
human sandcastles

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2357

You owe it to your friend to have conversations with many others—to increase your repertoire, to increase your curtains, to increase you.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2356

Caught my eye
that light last night—
            across the way a firefly
            answered the silent call—
above my uncut grass
a dozen more softly faded—
            we once were used to this

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2355

People are kind. Look for it.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2354

I want my words to arrive
to find a home
in your
center
core
the place where the snake curls
the one who is all embrace
where the tea meets the waters
two beings teeming each its own ways
perfumes acids flavors
loud rushing splashing
each infusing the other
with its kind of life
is the drink invigorating
or poison?
and I—this animal
no choice: life decrees I drink this brew

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2353

If we can find where words land in us—where we want them to land, we can begin—begin—to find where we want our words to go. Maybe then we can start to find their source in us.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2352

The conversation is alive, and doing what it does. I trust this. I remind myself. So I cultivate conversations—more numerous, and with more.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2351

No part of you is simple.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2350

After all this
study, thinking, working
it is to me
yet a mystery
how to get
how to stay
close

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2349

Make it fun, be an imp. Implify!

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