Breathe

Lifeless and defunct,

Dirty, scattered dust

Littered and undone

Once – all of us.

But what is this movement?

An unexpected swirl –

Particles lifting, shifting

Normalizing into images faint

Faces, places, complexions and races

They hint about this – the Great Swirler of Dust.

Distant, closer, nearer, knelt

By piles of collapsed flesh.

Finally, breath.  

Before molecule movement or firing atoms,

Before brain and thought and pulse,

Before flow or organ function,

Before life,

Breath.

The body – marked by its first and its final,

Its rhythm and rhyme are the song of our vitals.

Warnings flash when the rhythm is off –

Too quick, too short, fragile, soft.

As are our days.

And navigating this maze is tough

Unless, of course, the lefts and the rights

Are hardwired against the “I’m not enough”s.

Spun deep within the air we share –

Adoption, identity.

Felt when the earth breathes its breath

Across our skin –

Eliciting a response from the thin layer

That separates it from the breath within.

And the Great Swirler of Dust,

The life-breath in us,

Gave the gift of the space between.

A story,

A vision,

A dialogue.

Breathe.