This little Bird (Julie Bird), stopped me at the fence..

with this brilliant couplet:

This cloud of breath’s a borrowing and lending

which links everyone, including me and you.

from:

Article of Faith

Et tu, Brute.

Brutus, even you.

Don’t tell me it’s not true,

the college city urban myth

that every breath you or I or anybody takes

contains a single molecule of air

expired with Caesar’s dying words.

To me it is an article of faith

that my blood, yours and everyone’s

is salt with two thousand year old oxygen

and, it follows, grains of every sneeze

or yawn or opera that there’s ever been.

Steam from Stephenson’s first Rocket ride,

songs that went to space and back,

each bark and war-cry, each World Cup whistle blast,

Spartacus shouting I’m Spartacus,

Kirk Douglas shouting I’m Spartacus—

particles of these are sherbet in our throats.

And this is where I make observance :

the front row seat in the stalls

for the opening speech of the final act,

at the foot of the soap-box and the busker’s pitch

and in the market, where the man who sells fruit

is zesting the air with his citrus patter.

Here, my lungs are nets to catch

this glitterfall of exhalation

to keep with Caesar’s sigh and Cassius’s kiss.

This cloud of breath’s a borrowing and lending

which links everyone, including me and you.

Do you believe it too ?

Breathe, if you do.