Where were you last year?

Breath deep, Breath deep

The air fills my lungs and then?

My blood receives

This grace by which 
I live a few moments more

My every cell replenished.

With every breath


A part of me departs

And something new

Is put in place.

The rice I ate yesterday,

Where is it now?

In my muscle, in my bone.

The juice we shared,

Where has it gone?

In our arms and legs and all.

Last month

The rice waved in the sunshine

In other lands:


In the low flood plains

Of the Mississippi

Or Irrawaddy;

And the fruit hung

On trees in Cyprus 
Sicily or Spain.

And before that?

Before that their substance

Was in the soil,

Was in the air,

Was in the seas.

Waiting to be gathered up

Waiting to soar up into the highest reaches of the sky,

Waiting to become rain.

You and I 
Are mostly water.

Last year

Most of each of us

Was in the ocean.

We circulated together


In the Atlantic

Or the Pacific perhaps,

For we are mostly water.

And that water was lifted

By sunshine heat

By the impact of photons

Cascading down


Beating upon the ocean’s face.

And every photon

Comes from the sun,

From the belly of the star;


You and I were stars last year.

We chased each other

In the turbulent heart of the sun.

So who was it that lived in your house last year?

And where will you be next week?

Who is your true friend and who your foe?

And who will you be next year?

Breathe deep , Breathe deep.

This air is me.

This air is you.

This air we share.

I give my substance to you and

You yours to me.

With each breath I am linked

In a single orbit

With the great forests.

My out breath is their food,

Their’s fills my lungs.


Last year 
I was a tree


And the tree was me.

Each day

We gather up substance

And continue the task

Of endlessly

Remaking ourselves

From one another.

Each day

We discard a portion

And continue the cycle

Of endlessly

Returning ourselves

To others.

Day by day we change


And become one another, 
the substance of the universe,

Stardust and all,

Passing through us each

And we through it.

Where were you last year?

Breathe deep, 
Breathe deep.

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