What is Going

All that matters is–––what? Sometimes I cannot hear.

I want the children to be able to dream and breathe. I want their dreams for them, their breath, their dream breath back to them now, the winds restored where they were knocked out like a blow to the back. Sometimes at a birth a child will need to be reminded to breathe, but this is something else.

Sometimes at the death of children a collective body will need to be reminded back to collective breath.

It knocks now. Let some new wind be what this is, knocking back. Louder now. Everyone I see in passing in a workday says the same thing. I need to breathe we say to one another. A body deprived of oxygen will fade. A soul deprived of body will––what? Are these souls knocking about? Something knocks at my temples now. It will not stop. How are you? I ask the children, an opening ritual. Tired, they say. I am so tired.

These are our children. They are not breathing well.

All that matters is what will restore breath. All that matters is protection of breath, of dream. All that matters is rest for these knocking souls. We try to hold the thought.

Another round fires into the space again where we are trying, looking up, to remember a dream. Its noise pours over us like sand into our mouths.

Author: Stacey C. Johnson

I keep watch and listen, mostly in dark places. View all posts by Stacey C. Johnson