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My Own Collusion, or: Rumi on Breadcrumbs

“My Own Collusion, or:

Rumi on Breadcrumbs”


Of late - I have noticed - I 

pick up stones quite a bit.


Marking off my wanderings 

with mementos from the ground.


Stones holding a hint of the

wonder I explore.  Pebbles

that remind me of the days’

conquests and finds.


A pocket of cairns meant 

to notch off my exploits as

I amble across this life.  This

life I have been working at

with diligent attention - more

so often these days. 


This one reminds me of a view, 

that one of a mighty torrent. This 

one of a mountain, and that one 

of the purpling-green ocean waves.


Fondling their solid weight one

crumbles and I begin to notice 

that the stones I thought I was 

picking up were breadcrumbs 

all along.  Breadcrumbs I had 

laid down - purposefully on my 

own - so I could always find my 

way back home.  Find a place of 

common comfort when all else

seemed lost or out of focus.  


It seems my aging heart was drawing 

me backward to places I had been.

And beyond my own figuring I was 

retracing steps long ago trod.


Not stones of the new lands 

I was leaning toward and 

uncovering.  Not pebbles of dreaming 

and “perhapses”.  Not placeholders used 

to imagine the unknown. Not seeds 

of the adventures unseen or untasted.


I had picked up tokens of where I had 

already been.


These were not harbingers of where 

I was going.  Not calling me forward 

into the new I would do; rather, calling 

me back to the known places where 

I had been.  Somewhere my heart had 

taken up the map and had fooled my 

head into thinking it was in charge.  


And, that somewhere was in the 

terminus of midlife - the far side 

of Dante’s DARK WOOD.  


Now was apparently the time I needed 

to yearn for comfort, not the time I 

needed to long to explore.  My heart

had been in collusion all along with

my mind, but one day took it by force.  


Feeding me on the warmth of the 

familiar it lured me back to places 

of a safe and antiseptic recapitulation.


No wonder I found this way so charming

and delightful.  I stood in my own boot

prints from days gone by.  Reveling on the

recognizable and not so much revealing

what was remote.  Back.  Always back.

Back to where the quilts were made of 

patches from my jeans and flannel.  Where

every new staircase led to the art studio

on Saturday mornings - slipping a five

into the cigar box before climbing the steps

of the loft to create.  Back to the same old

fishing holes, gardens, trap lines, and recipes,

friends and acquaintances, family and heroes.


Entwining me in a warp and weft of my very 

own repast and repose I was ensnared by a

loving side of my own self.  A soulful force

held sway on what I needed.  But, from within.


My days had shifted to an anadromous 

return.  The Hansel and Gretel of my own 

SELF worked hard at keeping me in the 

shadows - just beyond knowing what it 

was up to.  It was feeding me my own self.  

I have been digesting the nourishment I 

have stored from a life lived. No wonder

now why I have been pleased as Punch.


There is in us a GREATNESS we only 

catch a glimpse of once or twice.  An 

aroma we whiff which causes us to turn

our head.  Trust THIS greatness.




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