Hard to know what to say to someone

Hard to know what to say to someone
 whose feet are to the fire
my feet have never been held to this fire
 nor can they be.

All I can do is say:
 I see you, my dear sister, and hold you in my heart.

I sit down on the floor of my cave-home
 spread out before me
  a lifetime of gathered talisman
 sort them into two piles:
  one pile I leave behind
   when I go out my door for the last time-
   and what time is not my last
  a second pile I tie about my neck
   as I go out for my last time-
   and what time is not my last.

Could I give you anything
 it would be this last single talisman
  ancient and has no name
  [I point towards it many a time.]

The touch of talisman awakens
 wakens in us an awareness
  of our own ancient and nameless sacred.



Forgive a bit of pedantry:  the old form of Greek
in which some of Heraclitus' words come to us 
has the form of verb for touch, waken 
and ignite as an identical form.