Tripping

Dear blood of mine
whose dance began in my mother’s womb,
you travel through my body
all these years in locomotion
under my heart’s tender watch.
Your rollicking circular passage
yes lets me live but also shows me how.
I honor your flow and exchange,
the beauty of your diffusion,
the fairness of your sharing,
and your fixed return to start at the heart.

What a muscle you are, dear heart,
living between my lungs that fly
like wings on either side of you.
In your secret chambers ,
your one-way doors,
when they open,
when they close,
make that blessed drumbeat that tells me I’m alive.
With 100,000 beats each day,
dear heart you pump around my body,
five whole quarts of love per minute.

What a journey is your circuit,
a speeding train on a complex track.
Your rushing aorta highways inside me,
and your capillary country roads
where blood does the ballet of exchange,
the delicate drop-off, pick-up –
if I could line you all in single file,
you would measure, what?
To two and a half times around the earth!
All inside me, you wonderful vessels
sailing the blood along its course.

What a dance of transportation.
I give thanks for air you carry everywhere,
nutrients of every kind
delivered precisely as needed,
and wastes whipped away without complaint.
How constant you are, dear blood of mine.
How grateful I am for your mothering.
Though I cannot book
a circulatory Tour,
as long as my heart is beating,
I’m tripping in your continuance.

©Susa Silvermarie 2024