Tool Belt 24.04.018

When little, my dad taught us deep-breathing:

“in through your nose

and out through your mouth,”

as my brother stumbled through his words,

all halting gasps and tears,

incoherencies;

as my butterflies frothed

in pyloric chyme: back-seat driving to 9ine
AM Sunday swimming lessons,
knowing 

throwing up chlorine-water, snot, Cheerio-cereal
after bad-backstroke nosechugging

might be my pricey ticket home. 

Better than a car’s back seat
was a quiet afternoon: threat looming, 
yet couchbound by a purring cat.
There I learned some mindfulness,
puzzling the cues of a creature with claws
who modeled such depth of breath.

Re-turn, re-turn to the breath,

fo-cus

on

the-breath.

From my mother I’ve taken grace and dignity;
she sits now with herself
through sadness and all else unpleasant besides;
I’ve learned the patience we must keep
as we await our own arrivals on the Other Side.

Hardly fearing any longer

nigh-unending forests in twilit gloom—

there is always an Afterwards.