Air

I wrote these a few weeks back. A friend of mine, Naomi Laufer, runs a group called “Poetry in Motion”. It’s a movement and writing group, hosted by 6 St. Joseph House.

6 St. Joseph House is a resource for individuals who are at a crossroads in their lives, and to develop more creative and compassionate ways of responding to the challenges of livelihood and homelessness.

Operating out of a Victorian townhouse at Yonge and Wellesley, they hope that 6 St. Joseph House will become a working model of community for a more compassionate City of Toronto.

In any case, the theme for the day was “Air”. So here’s what my movement inspired me to write:

#1

Lift off
Take flight
You’d don’t battle gravity anymore
No ties, weightless, buoyant and free
Your direction unplanned
Your path not paved
Go ahead, release into uncertainty
There is something
It beckons; waiting, hoping
Succumb and find ease
Be taken and guided
Let it, allow it, feel it
It is in you
It is you
Air.

#2

I exhale warm recycled air
I’m giving it back
I don’t need it any longer
A warm rush of heat leaves my nostrils
My next breath used to belong to someone or something else
What an honour to use it, to share it.
I’m taking it in so that my mitochondria get fed
Sometimes it tumbles out of my mouth noisily
Thankfully I don’t need to think
About air all the time
I can use it without permission
And I don’t have to justify to anyone just what I’m doing with it
Just like every other being,
I subsist because of air
I speak
I laugh
I sigh
I release
I am air
Thank you air.