The footsteps echo with needs and endless desires striving for forever more than this moment. New footfalls, but unheard behind the noise of busy plans and searching eyes that scan the world ahead as much as the mind searches a world behind. Clouds gather above and split the infinite clear gently as storms gather an impossible distance away. Death resides in other lands, here a lightning crack only a collapse of light and energy and an ecstatic reach to the sky for connection. Never a weapon report; a crack in the procession bringing pain at the cost of a family’s bond. Mothers may cry silently here, but behind footfalls and for reasons no more important than these steps carrying her from here to the next stop in a vivid kaleidoscope of daily business. Maybe a tear under the light of the sun, a refracted prism landing on the walls of a store lined with baubles and sentimentality; all for sale because the need requires something to hold and palm in a time of discomfort. That’s when blue skies cower under the threat of something darker and more sinister than the white of skywater. When clouds hug earth, choke at life and shroud all of those footsteps – quickening and now chaotic – with black, acrid reminders that envelope plans and never fully release.