Different Again

I breathed in.
The air, in hollows or rooms.
Entered me, invisible.

Out, I breathed part of me:
An exchange as invisible
As each breath before it.

It goes on for a lifetime,
This breathing in ignorance,
Capturing unseen atoms
Releasing them, never knowing
Which hollow or room
Is home to fugitive air.

A light wind came
From some direction,
Moved air through windows
Across grass or forest, plain or hill,
Put our breathing to shame
Left in still places, air,
Different again.

© BH, 2016

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I found this among notes. The precursor to the poem Breathe, put up more than a year ago. Rereading it, I thought about how far the end was from the beginning. And maybe the beginning catches something altogether fresh. 

I’ve been reading Jack Kerouac’s sketches lately. Different genre, different take on everything, of course, but set down, I understand, and untouched and unedited. Maybe that process produces a different thing, every iteration, different again.