breath

(Poem: 2023 September 16)

Stillness and warmth,
    skyglow over unfurled clay stretching out
    and dividing pines stretching up
I stretch out and up
    and my body remembers
    what it is to live
to stay awake with the stars
    with new old friends
    a flash that kindles
    grows overnight within

And I am a new flame meeting the dawn fire
    a child racing out
I am a new breeze rushing pellmell
    past long-limbed trees and flower-sweet marsh
    raindrops flinging themselves into my smile
a cartwheeling wave
    a giggling aeration of water and wind
    tears, a laugh
    a maelstrom, a mistral

I shed my sandals, my old skin
    offering flesh freely to the horseflies
    (surely I have already taken too much from them)
    skittering through sand drifts
    to the sea

And I am a new current
    dancing weightless
    pirouetted by underwaves
    arabesque splash
    salt ripple kiss on lips
    new breasts sleek in the sway
    dizzy with ocean wine
and then, anew,
    stillness
    warmth

My body also remembers
    what it is to stand and to lie
    to play
    cradled firm in gravity
my fins become limbs
    claws digging into the grit-laden swirl
    pulling me forward through surf
finding new legs that crawl
    and plant toes in sand
    and then run

And then, miles west
    where unfurling sunlight now stretches out
    a whale knifes up into air
    cavernous exhale inhale
wings become fins
    spiralling sinking under
    flukes stretched up
    and then dive

---

I wrote this while at the retreat I went to in Tuscany, a week of yoga and writing (officially), but also amazing human connection with a remarkable group of women, along with great food and wine and scenery and a heavenly beach (a short bike ride away, through horsefly-rich nature). Much of the wording came to me on a ride down to the water, and then in the sea; I then rushed back to my room to write it down and finish a first draft. I couldn’t find a decent ending however, and it took a one-on-one session with retreat co-leader and amazing writer Jill Filipovic to find a different path, using an earlier idea I originally thought didn’t belong. I’m still not sure it lands just right, but many edits since haven’t fixed it.

One thing I do like about the ending is breaking my usual first-person perspective. I admire many poets, Norman MacCaig in particular, who often write wonderfully about things without inserting themselves into the picture, and wish I already had the knack: won’t people get tired of hearing about me and my feelings all the time? But then today, my friend Morgan from the retreat pointed out that readers may easily see themselves and their own experiences in a first-person poem, making it about them even if it was written about me.