Day 28 / Write 28 Days: Noticing

Groundless

I'm breathing, noticing inbreath, outbreath; 
I'm reciting the numbers, their regular progression 
from one to eight, then one to eight again; 
I'm imagining moon-swayed waves lapping 
the obliging shore, an unbroken motion 
echoing like a dream through aeons 
and trenched history; 

anything to calm this shaky quaking. 
A planet so small and unsheltered
rumbling with tanks and trucks advancing, 
clenched and purposeful,  
rattling, grinding, 

breathing like me,
just like me,
tight and choked, 
their advent grave and grimmer 
than the tick tick ticking 
of our lifelong hearts, forsaking 
the movement of sun across a worn kitchen floor, 
the smell of rain, the warm shared bed, 
all of us who crept and crawled,
ran with breezy abandon and the air's salvation, 

until the land crumbled, trees unearthed, 
earth unspun, dreams unravelled 
and the ground gave way, 
again and again,
dissolving, no longer 
ground but a sigh of steam invisible 
against a still breathing sky. 


© M Wms Feb 2022