Out

The tops of the spruce seem to move

though there isn’t a breath of wind

and they don’t sway as one but instead

each needle, it shimmers as if—

In central America, people are using

nothing but sight to record

the respiring breath of each plant

from leaf to rainforest air:

to see a plant exhale.

My teacher says all violence

would subside, if not disappear

if each of us, everywhere, just

paid attention to our breath.

in. then out.

It’s so easy we don’t even have

to think about breathing but when

I listen and wait for call and response,

I learn there’s just so much I—

A scientist claims that the breath

of plants can save us from

warming climates and acid seas

if only we’d re-green our world.

to relax, exhale twice as long.

Once I sat on a rock that had

recently been under a river of ice,

shaped now by the softest green moss

so gently it felt like a breath.