breath be-telling

I only recall breathing out

as if the start to a run-on sentence.

ascending from an inner whisper,

gains volume into audible tones

then sounds like a lament.

when I first hear myself,

maybe it's just soft exasperation.

is it a remark in response

to the way aging feels?

is it an answer 

to the subtlety of bodily-pain in resound

or is it a remark to the sum-total of living?

it's not pitchy or pushy, either way.

but if I heard this from an animal,

it would sound like the breath out of a mule,

packed down and been long on the trail,

or a lizard, winning out on futility, 

with common-place patience ongoing.

there is no urge on my part to listen up,

for my in-breath sound.

I assume it is taken 

and its work has just begun.

it strikes me as odd, to hear it as a remark,

but I do.

some witness inside of me notes it 

and wonders at the cultivation it took

to come out sounding like that.

and the part of me wonders further 

what does it emotionally mean

that I seem vaguely aware.

if I knew other people just this way

what would I have to say, 

in response to that from them 

as an utterance.

is it a pep-talk I would give?

is it a sense of compassion 

needing to be expressed?

is a private sense of shared sorrow revealed

but not easily addressed 

as a topic for discussion.

would we just look out at the world 

in a similar way,

with a somewhat philosophical chagrin,

buried deeply in a summational glance

but never to register as a stare?

so many mannerisms are filled 

with cumulative summary.

it was like a deep sigh 

but more in the balance of things.

there are times I image myself ,

writing things down with a pen,

important items to remember

but I am taken up by the feel of my grip

and I loose my train of thought,

almost transferred 

to another land of observation.

once there, I view myself as having a life.

it's not really me 

but living as me in this time.

it is from there that I look 

at breath as an instrument.

sort of like being a musician of song-living.

from there, I just play the song of my life.

and inwardly hum along 

as if I was actually living . . .