Hearing the Breath of Others

Today from the Writer's Almanac
I read this poem early this morning. I think this poems speaks to me as to why I do yoga or perhaps what is yoga in action at any given moment or what is "kairos"/There are many times in my life that I do not always feel like listening to others, absorbing, containing the variable energies of the moment. Sometimes I just want my space,but then there are moments that we allow ourselves to be supple and receptive ,that the slate is cleared and something unspoken,noteworthy,glistening occurs between us. Emptying myself out ,so to speak ,in yoga sometimes allows me to rise to these occasions where the human need for connection,affirmation and attention to each other is realized and rewarded and if we are fortunate to listen to our own breath,perhaps we will hear the breath of another as well...
Arc

by Amy M. Clark

My seatmate on the late-night flight
could have been my father. I held
a biography, but he wanted to talk.
The pages closed around my finger
on my spot, and as we inclined
into the sky, we went backwards
in his life, beginning with five hours
before, the funeral for his only brother,
a forgotten necktie in his haste
to catch this plane the other way
just yesterday, his wife at home
caring for a yellow Lab she'd found
along the road by the olive grove,
and the pretty places we had visited—
Ireland for me, Germany for him—
a village where he served his draft
during the Korean War, and would like
to see again to show his wife
how lucky he had been. He talked
to me and so we held
his only brother's death at bay.
I turned off my reading light,
remembering another veteran
I met in a pine forest years ago
who helped me put my tent up
in the wind. What was I thinking
camping there alone? I was grateful
he kept watch across the way
and served coffee in a blue tin cup.
Like the makeshift shelter of a tent,
a plane is brought down,
but as we folded to the ground,
I had come to appreciate

even my seatmate's breath, large
and defenseless, the breath of a man
who hadn't had a good night's rest.
I listened and kept the poles
from blowing down, and kept
a vigil from the dark to day.

"Arc" by Amy M. Clark, from Stray Home. © University of North Texas Press, 2010. Reprinted with permission