Qigong Breathing Practice
Lisa Creech Bledsoe
i. Scooping the Moon from the Sea
I carried into the clearing
into the bare streets, full wards
empty shelves, sharp fevers—
little of much use:
bee tending and two new gardens broken
during the muscle and
buoyancy of daylight.
At the boundaries I settled healing tea
and breath practice: Cloud Hands,
Scooping the Moon from the Sea—
in hopes they might hold down the edges
but hope drifts when night
drops anchor—
lungs turn to waterlogged stumps,
throats burn despite the damp.
Who doesn't long to sleep
or to wake?
ii. Pushing the Waves
Last night
the hammer of the wind
pried open our hives
with a howl like truck wheels
spinning on gravel,
rain wailing down
in a freezing foam
of bees.
I closed the hives
and brought heavier stones
up the mountain.
iii. The Sage Strokes His Beard
We may recover
I don't know yet what
we will carry away.
Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of two full-length books of poetry, Appalachian Ground (2019), and Wolf Laundry (2020). She has new poems out or forthcoming in The Blue Mountain Review, American Writers Review, The Main Street Rag, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and River Heron Review, among others.