Breath rises
as incense.
Everything grounded is finite.
This chair, this bed.
This earthbound perception.
But breath rises,
as our chests open out,
as our exhales loosen the weight of gravity.
Everything in us
that would hold us firm,
feet submerged,
does not equate to the breath,
weighing nothing
yet keeping us alive.
Breath rises,
and we are children at the precipice
trusting in the infinite.
Swimmers, given buoyancy
by the air in our lungs
as much as the salt in the sea.
Breath rises,
and so shall we
alight as windborne feathers.
With everything else fallen away
what hold has gravity?
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
October 2021
‘The first voice that speaks in the silent night is the cold flint. Out of the flint springs fire. The fire, making no sound…. That spark should spring from cold rock, reminds us that the strength, the life of God, is always deeply buried in the substance.’
~Thomas Merton, The New Man
Living Tree Poetry 