Invisible Magic

Air is the unseen anvil of the atmosphere,

crashing down as 14.7 lbs of pressure per square inch onto the surface of our skin,

balanced perfectly by the equal push of breath from within.

It is a restless phantom,pushing through the needle's eye,

shoving past the heavy limbs in a gale, and resting heavy on the tongue,

forgetting it is there until it is compressed in a bicycle tire,bearing the weight of a flying body,

or hissing sharp from a slow puncture.

Above…

The invisible pillar holds up a soaring hawk,

Even as the turbulent slap of a draft slips through the hairline crack of a closed window.

We name it only when it offends us,

a sudden, unwelcome gust that steals our hat,

or the stagnant, suffocating bubble of a closed room

that is a wall keeping the vast, shifting, weight of the unfathomably unseen.  

Air lives most of its life…

As a fugitive force,a restless phantom threading  the smallest seams of being,
slipping between leaf and lung,
a thief and a servant in the same instant.

Air shoulders its way through forests with a roar,
then folds itself soft as dust against the roof of the mouth,
a pressure we forget,
a presence we forgive because it is everywhere.

It labors quietly in the planet’s unnoticed corners—
lifting feather atop the ocean of unseen arcs,
knowing not of the infinite shore
met by the quiet rebellion of breath,
each inhale a negotiation,
each exhale a momentary truce.

Yet…

It is also habitually unruly,
a wild arithmetic that refuses balance,

tumbling, fracturing, spiraling into itself,
a gale whipping forth a vortex of impatience,
draft slipping sly fingers through sealed intentions.
It remembers no path, no promise,
only movement:
chaos given breath,
a language spoken in gust, hiss, and howl.

We ignore its constant miracle
until it is withheld, or broken, or loud,
or until the room grows thick with absence,
until the wind steals something we thought was ours.

And then…

At the beginning of all reckonings,
a newborn, trembling at the edge of light,
draws in this unseen tide for the first time,
and cries its joy of life in a sudden storm of air.