The Color of
Breath
Some
breaths are like that;
Cheaper than a toot,
Casual like Co2
bubbles up from the Coke!
Easy to be silenced,
Under the white knees!
White, Red, Yellow,
Brown, Black, Betwixt…
Yes, our breath has color,
Dear bro!
If you never noticed
Indeed, you're color blind.
On
A Pentecost day;
the day of divine breath,
It was for a worldwide sale!
The cheapo blackish sold out,
Like an alluring spectacle!
The curves, alleys,
Crossings, and stops at the red-light
uncannily resemble
branched out Lynching trees!
Strange fruits are the same!
Abysmal, abject black bodies.
Who wanna know?
Who wanna make the point?
On the top of the countless-
unbreathed blackish breaths,
The city is built, the life eructed!
Look; under your boot, a thick stench of blood!
Wherever the unbreathed-breaths suffocate,
Wherever the unsighed-sighs constellate,
Sure, there will be a Calvary or Tiananmen,
“And sooner or later,
the Tanks will appear!” [1]
Yet, We will sing the "Litanies for Oxygen."[2]
I have a Q to my Sister-folks.
And, I don't need an answer!
Don't get me wrong,
This is not a Yoga-talk
But a life & death-Query :
"When did you last have a full-length of breath ?"
Cheaper than a toot,
Casual like Co2
bubbles up from the Coke!
Easy to be silenced,
Under the white knees!
White, Red, Yellow,
Brown, Black, Betwixt…
Yes, our breath has color,
Dear bro!
If you never noticed
Indeed, you're color blind.
On
A Pentecost day;
the day of divine breath,
It was for a worldwide sale!
The cheapo blackish sold out,
Like an alluring spectacle!
The curves, alleys,
Crossings, and stops at the red-light
uncannily resemble
branched out Lynching trees!
Strange fruits are the same!
Abysmal, abject black bodies.
Who wanna know?
Who wanna make the point?
On the top of the countless-
unbreathed blackish breaths,
The city is built, the life eructed!
Look; under your boot, a thick stench of blood!
Wherever the unbreathed-breaths suffocate,
Wherever the unsighed-sighs constellate,
Sure, there will be a Calvary or Tiananmen,
“And sooner or later,
the Tanks will appear!” [1]
Yet, We will sing the "Litanies for Oxygen."[2]
I have a Q to my Sister-folks.
And, I don't need an answer!
Don't get me wrong,
This is not a Yoga-talk
But a life & death-Query :
"When did you last have a full-length of breath ?"
(Image courtesy: Immanuel Paul Vivekanandh)
[1] Giorgio Agamben, The coming community (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota,2013),86.
[2] Indebted to my friend Fr. Patrick Saint Jean for this idiom. See his essay https://thejesuitpost.org/2020/05/after-george-floyds-suffocation-a-litany-for-oxygen-from-a-black-jesuit/
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