Challenging Poetry

child's pose

his voice washes over me
reminding me to breathe
all the way down to my toes
all the way in through my fingertips
until everything—the air,
the mat beneath me,
the floor beneath it,
the bluff beneath it
with its grasses and flowers
and trees and soft breezes
flow in a breath down the river to
the sea—
all seas breathe,
(in through the nose,
out through the mouth)
exhaling waves that brush against
the islands of the sea,
where turtles and lava rocks and
and groves of banana trees breathe.
everything is breathing—
the world breathes.
the glaciers in the vast ice rivers,
the continents in their drifting
and quaking breathe,
and on mountains far away,
wise men sit and listen with me
for the breath of the universe.

line count: 27