A thought for summer solstice

Footprints

Every square centimeter
every vista of our mother earth
every place visible to our inquisitive eyes
remembers footprints — the first humans and
those who preceeded the first, the many
nations of swimmers, walkers and
flyers and sliders.

Just look how our own feet
mark earth, rocks, sand.

And even in dissipating
when footprints disappear,
melting into mud or
dusting away on the breeze, they
change forever some small
part of our beautiful round world,
just as depressions of heels in beach sand
govern how a small part of that next wave
returns to the sea, minutely changing all
subsequent waves
forever.

Grandfathers, tunka sheilas,
smile down at my own steps, and
guide them to honor all nations of
swimmers, walkers and flyers and sliders,
as my footprints change forever
my brothers and sisters and cousins.

In the four directions, grandfathers watching.
Mitakeyu oyasin, mitakeyu oyasin.