Breath is the first prayer
That opens us to wind,
Rhythm breaths us
Into the pulse of the world.
Impulse lives in matter,
Body of earth, water,
Air, fire, She knows
The shape of my bones.
Music is our longing
To return to stars.
Stones remember,
Sing back the story,
How the moon rises night after night,
How she is silently sewing the stars
Into the dark fabric of sky,
Each stitch a prayer of attention.
In the tenderness of breath
Conspiracies, called words, are born.
When I speak a poem
My feet feel good.
— Sally S. Atkins from Picking Clean the Bones: Poems