Your breath trades on borrowed air
inflating inspiration through your belly
and just as quickly returned to atmosphere.
Does it feel that minute moment
of life it sparked in your lungs?
The oxygen rich excitement
or the relaxing of grief’s
strangled grip,
finally expelled out
in cathartic cry?
And did you notice it, thank it?
That brief gift delivered to you
so steadily that
we calibrate our senses
to cancel out the noise
of its constant motion.
How easy it is to forget
that we are never not moving.
No matter how simple
or profound the moment,
we were never meant
to hold it still.
We carry it
just as it carries us.
We are agents of that air
that powers our voices,
changes us,
propels us to change the world around us.
And when that world balloons
to an unbearable burden,
We remind ourselves, “just breathe”,
if you can’t take anymore,
just take that one breath
and the rest will slowly return to you
your body echoing the endless flow of tides
Sharing the air from the same winds
that wind around, and over, and through
every obstacle in the earth’s vast imagination.
We become that air that animates us
and assume its responsibility,
to amplify the music that surrounds us
and wear down the sharp edges,
sweep the dry cracked leaves from the ground
lift them up, and make them dance again.
And when that breeze lifts you
to dizzy thrills, impossible excitement
swelling up in your chest,
give yourself that brief instant, feel it
flush through you,
then remind yourself, “just breathe”.
– Borrowed Air © Mike Chernoff 02/23/2023
From the collection Steer into the Skid
Chernoff Writing.com 