Teachers of Play

Never before have I breathed
in a human pod of happiness.
My mind gets out of the way.
I learn to be a conscious breather,
to expel old air, fill more lung,
all of my energy on hand.

I cry out to the sea and learn
that staying in the moment can’t
mean holding onto my breath—
Instead I must trust the in and the out
to bring me over and over,
to the present point of power.

I cry out to the sea
for a finishing of grief.
I don’t need the story to open the door,
the one with the sign marked Unknown.
This is where I have wanted to stay,
this is what I have always
reached out my arms to embrace—
not the realm of physical death,
but aliveness that demands
death to past and future.

Flying in the wind on the sea,
is the only thing there is.
Wanting nothing else
expands me into ecstasy,
my life a practice of breath.

Held in the salty sea,
I am suspended; weightless;
secure in a water world, surprised
to breathe through my mouth like them.
And then they are beneath me,
these Beings of the sea,
teaching me how to Play.

I feel the changing of my cells
pulsing life at a new vibration.
I give the ocean all my befores,
which fall away like the dream they were.
Free of gravity and past, I float,
sloughed of the worries about what is not here.
On the sea, I arrive at a time
that has never been before,
and will never come again.
I am a wave! I am a particle!
I’m a Being in the field of Play.

©Susa Silvermarie 2016

One Response to “Teachers of Play

  • Pauline Loewenhardt
    8 years ago

    Dear Susa, Love this poem..It returns me to the storied ocean realm beneath the waves. Once upon a time, Martha, Curry and I snorkeled in the ocean off the Keys. This brought that magical time back.

    Love, Pauline