Seeking Breath: A Journal
T
HE PREVIOUS ESSAY speaks about lines that arise spontaneouslyaround a held intent. But at times I go after a topic, worrying it from
this angle and that, repeatedly cycling through it.
Finished poems are like tumbled stones worked and
reworked until their sheen and shape are perfect in the eye of
the poet. I include this journal to share a bit of the messiness of
writing poetry. I began it when I heard of a Zen master who
asked his students to bring him a novel insight into their breath
each day. Before writing an entry, I attended to my breath for
15 minutes or more. The following set of statements on in-breath,
out-breath and the still points between them will be a
springboard for a yet-to-be-written poem. It is a snapshot in
mid-process before discrimination and polishing begins.
Nestled in the repetition and inane lines are promising ideas for
a poem I’ve yet to start.
• • •
Day 1
My breath breathes itself. I’m along for the ride.
Day 2
The bottom of my breath is forever. I cannot stay there yet.
Day 3
My breath enters a vast cavern, echoing off far walls.
Day 4
My breath has its own mind. Any thought I have is irrelevant.
Day 5
The fullness at the top of my breath turns towards empty on
a knife’s edge.
Day 6
My in-breath abounds with life like the plains of Central
Africa. My out-breath is a near-desert stretching life thinly.
Day 7
My breath rises from the unformed and returns to it, as a
thrown ball follows gravity’s arc back to earth.
Day 8
My breath at rest sleeps in soft darkness.
Day 9
My in-breath bears the serenity of no-breath, much like a
finger dipped in water carries a film of wetness when lifted
away.
Day 10
Though no-breath seems as dense as the root of a mountain,
it shifts at the slightest quirk of vapor.
Day 11
When no-breath opens, I could stay on and on but my
body’s compulsion sadly speeds me away.
Day 12
My breath goes from clear to cloudy when thoughts claim
me.
Day 13
Breath awaits, no matter what my mind engages.
Day 14
No-breath sags in the middle like a drum head in gravity. I
roll about and find rest at its center.
Day 15
I cannot find my no-breath after running. Just a rapid
pumping to meet my cell’s demands that compacts the bottom
to a swift bounce.
Day 16
No-breath is a velvet, black-body space.
Day 17
My inner eye sees crisply on the in-breath, but dims and
drifts on the out-breath. I lose focus entirely during no-breath.
Day 18
No-breath is vaster and more energy rich than the space
stretched between the subatomic world and galaxies.
Day 19
Where does no-breath start? My in-breath and out-breath
have beginnings, but out-breath slides into the infinite,
coming closer and closer to it until it is still.
Day 20
Only in-breath takes work. Once over the top, the loss of
air is effortless.
Day 21
The emergence of breath from no-breath mirrors the birth
of matter. From no-time and no-space, dimension explodes
outward on an inrush of air.
Day 22
I long to linger in no-breath, but the ceaseless pull to
breathe is beyond any I control.
Day 23
My mind slips away from the world and empties along with
my lungs as I breathe out.
Day 24
When a veneer of thought obscures my breath, awareness
cuts through to the rhythm beneath in a version of the game
‘rock (breath)–paper (thought)–scissors (awareness)’.
Day 25
I can control my breath for a few cycles before my body’s
basic wisdom returns breath to its natural state.
Day 26
I know the mind of filling, the full-bodied creation of
form along with breath. But the emptying mind, the
backside of evolution and breath, is still a strange land.
Day 27
The back side of breath is dissipation and disintegration in
an open slide to the eternal.
Day 28
Waves ride the stillness at the bottom of my breath. My
heart beats with them.
Day 29
Each breath is unique in the space of its strange attractor.
How to savor the virtues of each one? I’m learning.
Day 30
I free-fall on the out-breath without a parachute. No wonder
thought collapses.
Day 31
In-breath and out-breath form a shape like my thoracic cavity:
a fullness up front and a sharp drop down my back.
Day 32
Rest-rise-rest-fall-rest. Functional words, but how limited
a way to describe infinite breath.
Day 33
Following my breath, I find renewed energy, focus and
deeper sensing.
Day 34
I drop from thought to breath and am disoriented. Like a
familiar road gone strange, I lose my bearings and wait for
breath to show me where I am.
Day 35
The start of in-breath is sluggish, as if I push my chest into
a viscous fluid. Soon the effort grows effortless, a sort of
respiratory shear thinning.
Day 36
Out-breath relieves the building tension of in-breath. How
sweet the slide to neutral ground and the end of doing.
Day 37
Dropping into breath forms an alliance with the order
underlying it.
Day 38
Though no-breath is independent of space and time, its
echo is present throughout the breath.
Day 39
I focus to infinity as I breathe, keeping no-breath in sight as
I rise and fall.
Day 40
As I embrace no-breath, it spreads across the rest of my
breath bringing clarity and ease.
Day 41
Dropping into breath from thought is like adding eyes
where none were before.
Day 42
The very top of breath is undefinable and too elemental for
the mind to grasp.
Day 43
My breath emerges from no-breath as a broad sheet that
collects into a single strand.
Day 44
The shape of breath is invisible, but solid. I skate its surface.
Day 45
The rhythm of respiration is everywhere in me at once, as
much in my right index finger as in my chest.
Day 46
Breath has no meaning! Depth. Speed. Color. Yes.
Thoughts that try to link me to it only separate us.
Day 47
Have I ever travelled a full breath? I don’t think so. Like
some manic firefly, I flicker in and out of reality.