Breathing

You breathe,
feeling the breath fill you,
feeling your lungs expand,
the tight plate of your diaphragm lifting,
drawing in air,
your chest rising, almost to pain,
rising to a silent count of seconds.

In.
Out.
In.
Out.

The air fills you.
The air leaves,
and with it the irrationality
that creeps in all too often,
each breath a prayer,
a promise, a taking of control
of a body that believes it does not need you to live.

You breathe. You count.
You breathe again,
You feel the moment,
the wellness of it,
the strange perfection of an old man’s breath
wresting control of far more than lungs.

About this poem.

I meditate. Sometimes alone in the morning. Sometimes, like today, in public places. This morning, at the local diner.

It’s OK. They are used to me here.

Tom