Scattered Ruminations.
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It hangs all around me
pressurizing my world
the substance of life
inhaled thousands of times.
Daily it fuels the heart
and stokes the blood
as the soul flies on it's essence.
I have known it's lift
when a skateboard carried me
off a half pipe and into
the rush of a freefall,
landing precisely on target
or smashing into a scar zone.
I watched it fade in small puffs
from my mothers lips
as she left it for
an airless flight into eternity.
I have touched air in places
that I longed to hold
but failed to grasp,
yet I could feel it's substance
pour through my fingers
long after it was gone.
I have cringed each time it left
the bodies of 4,367 men in
post war Iraq far too early
in their struggles,
against the ungrateful
they sought to liberate.
I have shared air with another
that I cherished without their
even knowing that I was
in awe of such an honor.
I have been left without breath
in the close proximity of
one that I loved
exhausted by cries of joy.
I have filled the air with
my poems for many years
and many ears that were empty
were aired out with the burdens
and blessings of thought.
I have been on the air
and reached many with
one inspired and expired reading
in a stationary setting.
So often I go through
the motions of the
acceptance of air
without even
realizing the act.
I remember times without air
when death hovered over me
with a sardonic grin
sucking life from my flesh.
I recall fondly
the sweet scent of my
baby son's breath
as he slept in my arms.
I would like to know
so much more of this
world's atmosphere
in diverse places
but time is fleeting.
Someday I
will no longer
know this air that I breath
so freely now.
I will eventually
be blown away
and soon another will
take a quick gasp
and cry out at their
first contact with air's volume,
leaving the umbilical
cord of life untethered
as they begin their breathtaking
journey into life.
©-MFB III
