Today The Breeze

Today
the breeze
falls upon us
like thieves,
like moments,
to steal our watches,
pin us to our trees.

What if
every ever-buried skull,
each over-bitten grin
unearthed,
took all our tongues
to tell us,

“Your harmony
is our separation
together”...?

Is the face of our doubt
the bare space of stone
that strides out into sea?
There, where the
sheer cliffs plummet,
dissolve in mist
and stinging salt?

Does our story meander
through cold battlefields,
tripping past contrived,
unmarked plots?

Every muscle tenses
to know its limits,
to know itself
from the air on the
other side of skin,
the false lies of kin,
to feel in those upturned toes
tiny, sand-studded skies.

We stand
beaten at the shore,
breathing in the weight
of nothing above us,
waiting for the start of time,
fasting after the feast
of young flesh,
our blood our own,
still warm
with our best rhymes.

- Swami Ambikananda Saraswati