Awareness Gasping
by Odin Roark


How gentle
the awakening to breath,
life’s connection to awareness
even as consciousness chokes for air.

How simple,
how rarified this realization
taken for granted,
mostly ignored,
often denial becomes more politicized.

To somehow escape.
To lie among the grasses.
To keep alive one's existence.
To be.
To witness.
To become singular with the dwindling clean air,
the remaining unpolluted water,
the uncontaminated food.

What might that be like?

Inevitably…

Humans joyfully existing beside the insects,
animals and fowl may be but tomorrow’s illusion,
as Earth’s space seems in self-sabotage mode,
our enduring awareness gasping for what remains.