krishna leela · Day 145 · Week 21
Footprints in Dew
Around week twenty-one, you may feel a small flutter and lose it again — like a footprint in dew, gone the moment you look for it, true the moment you stop.
They did not find Him by looking harder. They found Him by looking the way grass looks at the sky.
It was the hour before the sun, when the world of Vrindavan held its breath. The cows were not yet awake. The dogs had grown quiet. The Yamuna moved without sound, the way a sleeping body moves in its dreams. And the gopis — the milkmaids of Vrindavan, who loved Krishna more than they loved their own sleep — slipped out of their houses one by one.
He had been with them the night before. They had danced. The forest had lit itself for the dance, every tree a lamp, every flower a small bell. And then, the way Krishna always did, He was gone. He had not said where. He had not said when. He had only smiled the smile that they would carry for the rest of their lives, and stepped into the dark between two trees.