Beach Breathing by Jean L. Kreiling

Beach Breathing

I breathe the damp and dizzy ocean breeze,
inhaling salt into my blood and bones;
the air that bears the gull’s careening moans
fills up my lungs with fresh infinities.
I breathe the rousing ocean rhapsody,
my nerves and tissues widening to collect
the well-tuned blue that lilting waves reflect
in shiny, shifting swells of harmony.
I breathe the sea-struck sun, and like the sky,
my cells and sinews brighten and expand;
I breathe the world along this stretch of sand,
and feel its vast resilience amplify
my own. It seems I hardly breathe at all
until I see salt water rise and fall.

by Jean L. Kreiling

Editor’s Note: Some poems are able to capture a singular moment, with all of its myriad images, as though infinity were easy.