so much is in the breath

frus­tra­tions,
cal­lous through­out the day,
stres­sors em­bed­ded in the
brain &
a heart­beat ex­ceed­ing what
should be record­ed as “healthy,”
and yet we march on
march on
march on,
with no end in sight &
on­ly crip­pling age & ill­ness to
look for­ward to,
still,
so much is in the breath one
takes,
deeply suck­ing in the air around &
ex­hal­ing—
fo­cus­ing on noth­ing but the breath—
do it again,
whoooooooosh &
the lungs fill up with a pu­ri­ty lit­tle
known to us, with the ex­cep­tion of
maybe the drink­ing of a glass of wa­ter
(that we lead our­selves to be­lieve is
still clean)—
clos­ing the eyes this time &
push­ing all the thoughts but the breath
out of one’s mind &
we are left with what­ev­er one can call
an in­di­vid­u­al peace,
un­til the next time we des­ig­nate a
mo­ment
just to
breathe.