I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. Dull eyes radiate.
Voices take-on their youthful timbre.
And having been summoned by the unquenchable thirst for knowledge, stories begin to first trickle, then cascade off of increasingly loose, ship-sinking lips. Or a half-full glass of water may be presented to us, to contemplate or sip from at will. These are our neighbors. The people who give us lousy directions. The gents who talk to us in the men's room.