In Breath, Out Breath

In Breath, Out Breath

Today, I am breathing in
the world.
Today, I am holding my breath
and yours and yours and yours,

letting the wind of them
whip around my heart,
carve my ribcage
a little wider. 

Today, I am willing 
to be gutted,
cleared of every hymnal and pew,
my walls moved, spires lifted.

Today, make of me a space
in which grief can dance,
wholly,
holy. 

Tomorrow,
remind me how to exhale,
how to let the heat
of all this holding
feed the trees. 

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

The Prompt

Some days I feel like a radio tuned only to the frequency of joy. Everywhere I look—beauty, beauty, beauty! Every little detail and quirk of my life—blessing, blessing, blessing or privilege, privilege, privilege, or absurdly lucky roll of the dice! Other days, I feel grief all around and through me, churning in my body, heavy in the air. Have you heard those stories of people who have dental work done and then start hearing AM radio stations crackling from their fillings? It feels like that. Like I’m suddenly an antenna, and radio waves of grief are pouring in from everywhere.

I don’t mind this. It feels like a thing that’s supposed to happen, like a weird little part of my work in this world—to just let it all in, then exhale it out with a little more softness than it entered. When I don’t resist, then grief feels like a strange cousin to joy. I don’t know how to explain that any better. But maybe someone can relate?

Today is a grief day. It was a grief day even before I heard that Andrea Gibson, a hero of mine, passed this morning. But of course, hearing this has turned the volume way up. I’m scaling back my to do list for the day. I’m trying to let my body move to the music. In that process, the poem above emerged.

If you would like to play with a prompt today, then I invite you to go still and quiet. Imagine yourself as an antenna. Imagine that emotions travel as radio waves. What feeling most wants to be felt in this moment? You do not need to justify your response. In fact, I encourage you not to. If you can, just let your body feel what it feels. Invite it to turn the volume up. Feel it more, if that’s a safe place for you to go.

Borrow this marvelous line from Joanna Macy’s translation of Rilke’s “Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower”: What is it like, such intensity of pain? But instead of “pain” fill in that blank with whatever you’re feeling. What is it like, such intensity of hope? Such intensity of ambivalence? Such intensity of fear?

Feel the answer. Let that answer—or the emotion itself—write the poem for you. And if you would like to share it, please do! Getting to read your poems here in the comments thread feels like such a gift.

Thank you for being here.