POEM: Breath Poem

Your were a friend, but then lost my address
You were a son or daughter, but now are orphaned.
You were in love only to become disillusioned by
The drama and the breakup.
You were alive and animated but then you passed on.

In the end is just the breath
That begins over and over and over again.

If not my own breath then yours,
If not your breath then creaturely breath,
If not the breath of creatures, then the sound
Of wind high in the hills,
If not the wind, then just fluttering wings
Of the luna moth,
Or the monkish junco, back for the new season.

Everything returns to the breath.

In the beginning too, it was just breath.

We artists of the creation that is “we” –
We squeeze truth out of light and dark,
From the sweet and the venomous
Both within and without us.