I have held my breath
for sixty seconds,
the extent of my life’s separation
from the air.
Beyond that time is a cataclysmal place.
A trapeze that is sundered.
So nature makes its point.
I belong to it.
Whatever I call myself, a
citizen of some arbitrary country.
I am nature’s soul.
I am nature’s heart,
and what I do to nature
I do to myself.
What I do to my friends
is being done to me.
To love nature is as natural
as to love myself,
with one reservation.
Nature is a purity that demands innocence.
We must literally love the air around us,
if not
sixty seconds is the only ransom
it would pay to keep me,
then I’m on my own.