Footprints in the Sand

The greatest civilizations

left no footprints in the sand

the greatest civilizations

were not civilized

the greatest civilizations

did not scar their mother

they left no trace

their edifices having

turned to dust and mossy forest floor

For it is arrogance, not love

that fences something in

The greatest civilizations

left their literature in the ears of the young

served directly from an elder’s tongue

No chiseled stone or tablet of clay

to remove the immediacy of the experience to another day

Just as time and space are one

We are a vital part of each moment

and to turn to the thoughts clamoring in our head

is like checking the texts on your cell phone

while standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon

We are the sand that we tread upon

Dissociated, we grind and we blind,

but together we support all of the water in the ocean

and struck by the lightning of inspiration

become hard enough and clear enough

to let the light shine through us