BREATHING

 BREATHING

Breathing is easy, in and out,

Smooth as water from a spout,

Breathing is shallow when you're afraid,

Or feeling regret for choices you've made.

Breathing is automatic, cinematic, systematic,

Breathing can be somewhat labored,

When you find you've fallen out of favor,

With life in all its glory,

Still you rise to tell your story

In black and white and shades of gray.

Breathing it does not appease

When crawling on your hands and knees

Though detritus and rubble.

You wonder if it's worth the trouble,

Inspiration and expiration conspiring.

When your life is bought and sold,

When all your dreams are fool's gold.

Breathing gets harder when you're feeling manic.

Gasping for air in clouds of panic.

Breathing comes harder when you're struck by disease,

Cancer, emphysema, or COPD

When breathing's your only respite,

You think about the infinite,

World devoid of blood and breath,

The sacred land of rest and death,

When the rise and fall of your heaving chest,

Is the one thing that you do the best.

There's nothing else that matters.

When your life falls down in tatters.

You feel it all start to precariously slide,

Still you breathe in oxygen, breathe out carbon dioxide

Breathing it is essential, rhythmic and fundamental,

Take good care of each precious breath.

For in the end they are all you have left,

To bargain with or trade, until your fortune's made.

Inhale and exhale, let your mind run free,

Through your life and all its history.

Smooth as water from a spout,    

A never ending mystery, breathing in and breathing out.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2023

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED