Kit Kelen #3 - thread of breath (notes towards a shorter poem)

thread of breath

responding to 'the breathing thread' - 

poems starting with Judy Beveridge and followed by Tricia Dearborn and Susan Fealy)

we of a breeze begin

stain dwellers

tide turned

we catch

ourselves

awash away

begin into intensity

here because

there's breath left

*

because I'm here a word with you

and sometimes hard

to spit it out

begin because

there's still to climb

and we make mountain of it

all overgrown

this orchard I, squeeze --

tether me any sea so

*

then tendril touch

and all enfold

caught to be kissed, go on

guess again

come bright

of the vision sought

certain notes

spin up from the fire

or come through smoke

a pollen cough

then we're the dark of it thus far

- we're carbon creatures too

*

must have slept to here

the snoring!

stertorous

catch ourselves a wink

it's work

this cramming air in

of a whim

then witness

call the forest lungs

call forth

a word because I'm with you

take mine -- please tell on --

*

all of a breeze begin

invisible, as we are

it's the pores as well

breathe in breathe out

kup hei fu hei

(Cantonese)

you'll take it in the treetops

a wingsit

huffed and puffed to here

let time be open-ended with

first perfect with before -- a self

I sit for they come as manna

*

then a stillness of it

as in death

but here we are again

chemicals is what the air is

even when we're soil, respire

evenly, especially

lives depend as much on song

aren't we reminded

confound the skin of style

*

as through ether I was dreamt

for a special radio rhythm

when wind blows the reception

this is my proposal for a volume of breath

(we all contribute) against the fear of never doing

what we haven't come to yet

*

sometimes a fist will freeze

by gust

and then not a breath of it

so steady on against

as with cliff

to clamber up

or out of puff

mere hill

with all that think-I-can

*

rose in nose much

fools of a garden reach to this

when bee to bud impatient flits

isn't it for this?

spell cast will resemble

a smoke ring, though anathema

has form to cloud the mind

the nextness of our having been

is all to go on here

*

best thoughtless

how hard can it be?

it's in the blood - our pedigree

like leaves blow in

the door we've left

the sacred thing

a death away

always just

thin thread of breath

who's happy with the ending?