What Your Breath Might Be

"Let Jesus be your breath."

~St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

 

Let Jesus be your breath.

He is the Door that is always

already open.

The frame has a shape,

but the passageway is empty.

Let La Ilaha be your breath.

The arrow floats back to the bow.

That is how true warriors

win battles before they begin.

The whisper of Hu dissolving 

crystals into sweetness.

Let Kali be your breath,

searing your midnight nerves

into bolts of lightning.

At dawn, the sound in your chest

is a forest full of exultation

about nest-building.

Fierce flowering may appear 

to be a universe outside you,

but its roots are golden pathways

leading through your body 

toward one seed of death,

one intimate drowning. 

I, a wave in the ocean of Am. 

The All-Pervading, 

encircled in a drop.

No distance, no pilgrimage.

This honey bee can't fly,

his feet are so weighty with

umami galaxies of lethal pollen.

This is now the face of the Beloved

lures you inward toward the Kiss

of annihilation.

When our lips touch

there is no breath at all

and it will be a thousand years

until your next heartbeat.

Photo: Aile Shebar