Well Of My Breath

Well Of My Breath
© Surazeus
2024 11 23

When I look into the well of my breath, 
I feel strange spirit of the Earth flow bright 
with hazardous desire for tranquil seas 
that measure vastness of my dreaming mind 
contained in shimmer of the river stone 
fractured by holy words I dare to speak. 

When the white crow that knows my secret name 
brings me black berries of the camphor tree, 
ancient voice in my spine sings about Death, 
though I sink deeper in silence of time 
till I breathe spirit of the fractured stone 
to keep my words hidden in unread books. 

When my blind mother decides to collect 
orange blossoms with souls only she can feel, 
I walk around the universal tree 
backward in time to before our sunrise 
when I smell thoughts of sirens in the swamp 
who call me to come and join their sweet choir. 

When I paint concept of the silver moon 
as starfish who prays to the lonely tides, 
I feel souls of strangers hidden in stones 
wake as my best friends I knew long ago 
before we built the bridge across the swamp, 
then pose for photos in the afternoon. 

When the toad hops across the kitchen floor, 
she searches false library by the sea 
for the mask her mother made from the tree 
that always asks about the words of bees, 
but instead she gives books of jeweled words 
to children who ask for apples instead. 

When the spider of light crawls on my eye 
at sudden flash of insight about love, 
I remember the first person I meet 
after I emerge from the fractured stone 
and breathe my soul into the empty sky 
where it congeals in words and becomes God. 

When they give me face they want me to wear, 
I tear it into poems of holy faith 
and throw them all in the crocodile lake 
till the ibis teaches me how to write 
stories that conceal what I really feel 
by twisting them into amusing jokes. 

When I find photos of my family, 
I erase their names and their dates of birth 
so they can fly away as butterflies 
that flutter around the old camphor tree 
where I lounge forgotten in its cool shade 
to escape the misunderstanding trap.