On A Hill Above Yuchi Township Poem by Denis Mair

I measure the hill by rhythm of breath
Collecting to inhale at each second push
My left foot makes against the slope
To keep from gasping on the out-breath
On this long morning walk
To get a look down on where
My life has been keeping itself.
After each burst of speed I watch my heart,
So momentum won't slow with a sudden droop;
My hepatitis war wound lets me off for today
My energy carries me forty steps at one go,
But around me are circles of darkness:
Everything that tried to tear me down,
From dangers of speed-car youth,
To networks that don't reweave
And judgments that slice my fingers,
My life fought to bring itself here
Through all the circles of yin;
It's better this way, to work against the drag
Than to inflate toward sudden explosion.
It's better to be occluded, a knot of desire,
Dust devil whipped into a shape
With landscapes of inner whorl and grain,
Dust devil stirred up by energy
Empetalled around its plan,
Knowing many aims, and so entangling more,
Seeing how emptiness around the knots awaits
Differently from emptiness above loose sand,
So emptiness may not always be the same.
First let energy learn its re-gathering
Then release it into emptiness
Or life can go no further.

For now submit to gravity,
Extend one foot and lean toward the next rock,
Choose the likely way to stay around,
Like remains of a journey in a jungle wreck.
O please let my shattered plan remain!
Involve me in vehicles however incomplete,
If only to place in cupboard corners, to pull out someday.
Return me down this hill to the tasks of the day.
I have failed to send my spirit abroad;
Return me to the usual buildings and grounds
To prove with my sodden spirit
Even as it clings close to my own bones,
To prove with the smallest of answerings
What it takes to leap across any gap at all.