WHILE THE AIR IS

Ours
I breathe
And the air in my lungs
Is knowledge now, and love, and joy,
An embodied joy
That reveals itself to me
Only as a cleaving
—So elemental That it never breaks off—
To the great succession of instants
In which I continue to breathe,
Embracing a part
Of the enormous airy clarity.
To live, to live, to seize from the rhythm of life
All this world that the air displays
And —God knows how— that pre-existing
Beyond
Which raises its gifts to the plateau of the ages
For me because
I breathe,
I breathe from moment to moment,
In perfect contact
With that reality which sustains me,
Lifts me up
And through stupendous equilibria
Leaves me overcome, astonished, obedient.