One - and I'm breathing in

"As long as breath fills my lungs..."

How many times have I sang that?

I used to wonder at the eastern practice:

Sitting, breathing, sitting, breathing,

Focusing on the simple movement of air

as if nothing else mattered

And when you understood that, they said

you would understand everything else

So I sit:

One - I'm breathing in

and I know I'm breathing in

One - I'm breathing out

and I know I'm breathing out

Then Two, and Three -

if I make it that far

Because slowly,

a cat stalking my attention in the shadows

The cares of my world creep in

to Pounce

To carry away those weaker moments of concentration

that cannot fend for themselves

And leave me fretting for

sounds of footsteps on the woodwork

and whether the dog's been fed

But from the scattered leavings of distraction

again I try,

and sit:

One - I'm breathing in

and I know I'm breathing in

And perhaps this time I'll make it until Four,

in that non-grasping, non-seeking...

what was the phrase

that my teacher used

when we were sitting that day under...

Damn. (in a non-grasping, non-seeking sense,

of course.)

One - and I'm breathing in

again.

[This whole thing is a fragment from late last year, but I've only now decided that it's done, and trimmed the dead end (below) off of it]

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(Why is breathing, simple breath

so difficult?

It's the first thing we do,

on our own, when the world

wrenches us from the womb

free of care

to fend for ourselves (sort of)

And the last thing we do

when the world draws us onward again

So is that it?

That we have never known life

without this precious focus