Salt Breathing. [Loose poem]

Old stomping ground.

Exhale Hill, as it is known by those of us who move
away from that wide open big water and miniscule cliffside life.

water methodists and whalers
yachtsmen gossips artists
the faithful and the bedhoppers
claythrowers gemworkers taverners dutiful counselors

It all seems so endless when you are there, going about the business of living.
And everything every breath: salt inhale, salt exhale.

Young and ripe, as fruit do, some rollaway down from the vine bush yard
and carriedaway by truck bus plane
land far afield for school love work. Breathing salt
inlanders now breathing dirt steel shale desert mountain.
tar grit over sandglass

Some of us suffocate without salt air many
return to this very apex
– not the cliff’s highest, but the most treasured –
simply to breathe
once a year
once a decade
mingle with ghost parasols button-up boots button-down shirts

simply to exhale
simply to exhale

Dar Dawson 2017