Breathe

I breathe in.

Air, transpires,
From its place in hollows and in rooms,
Fills my emptiness.

It enters me, invisible.

Out, I breathe, part of me,
An exchange as secret
As each breath before it.

It lasts a lifetime,
Repetitious, subliminal breathing,
Capturing the unseen, releasing it
Never knowing if hollow or room
Was its first and only home.

A light wind comes
From every direction
Moves air against windows
Through them, into interiors,
And away across fields or forests,
Across lowland and hill.

Wind puts breathing to shame.
It leaves in quiet places, air,
Different now.

In the face of the wind’s elusive creativity
The subtle gasps we live by
Panting, heaving, labouring,
So dull, so uneventful
Eddies full of nothing.

A breeze is rising, shaking the casements,
Rattling doors and gates
While under tree-bole or cliff
It stirs the fallen leaves
Of all the years now gone.

The wind breathes for us
Inhales and exhales the entire world.
It howls in the night for sorrow
Casts implacable torrents from the mountains
Follows rivers it has filled with rain
Until they spill themselves into seas
Swollen by time and all the winds before.

Another night, dark and weathered,
In this, wind shouts its long calling
Urges change, cries for motion,
Rubs and pushes against the stubborn ground.
It’s anger screams at trees until they snap
Hurls damage like a death-sentence
Drives rain and hail into everything.

Gale and hurricane suck at life
Breathing is suspended here
Past the point of return.
No human movement compares.
Open-mouthed we suffocate
Head-down we can only stagger
Until the storm blows us away
Or relents for breath
And sets us free.

© BH 2015

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It's weather. Because we've had a lot of it. And it's elemental. And it reaches everywhere.

Air moves around us, goes where it goes. Do we ever consider the stuff we breathe? In the dankest room, the atmosphere reaches in and fills it, changes it. All the storms and winds we might imagine move this invisible stuff around us. We see none of it. We sigh. What with?

Then in 2016, I find the words sketched before this was edited. Shorter and maybe sweeter. Who knows? Different Again.