Breathing

The natural order
is this:

first, we breathe,
then, we cry.

Nursing, sleeping, dreaming,
eating, drinking, elimination

all follow,
but the breathing is constant,

will be often unnoticed,
will be sweet and foul equally,

continues through smiling, laughing,
writhing, crawling, walking,

reading, writing, eventually
sex and its attendant foibles,

compounded from everything already mentioned,
working — grieving and recovery,

losing, winning, parenting
and more of all the above, and still

the breathing continues, up until
it stops, forgotten at once upon cessation

along with everything else.
We create so much along the rails of breath,

marking the events
left trackside as being our truest expression

when the miracle
is measured in breath upon breath

taken in spite
of all the rest,

and in our continual recovery
from the first sharp cry we gave

after drawing the ripe tang of the world
into our lungs —

why do we focus on the crying and laughter,
desiring one over the other

when the breathing is what remains constant?
We are not made to be happy or sad forever:

we were meant only to breathe,
and to count the rest of it as mere consequence,

just the fruit
of the natural order,

just the rumble of a train
going home.