Nishmat
Marge Piercy (from The Art of Blessing the Day)

We are given the wind within us, the breath
To shape into words that steal time, that touch
Like hands and pierce like bullets, that waken
Truth and deceit, sorrow and pity and joy,
That waste precious air in complaints, in lies,
In floating traps for power on the dirty air.
Yet holy breath still stretches our lungs to sing
We are given the body, that momentary gathering
Of elements that have belonged to frog and polar
Bear, corn and oak tree, volcano and glacier.
We are lent for a time these minerals in water
And a morning every day, a morning to wake up,
Rejoice and praise life in our spines, our throats,
Our knees, our genitals, our brains, our tongues...

Where Many Rivers Meet
David Whyte (from River Flow: New and Selected Poems)

All the water below me came from above.
All the clouds living in the mountains
gave it to the rivers,
who gave it to the sea, which was their dying.

And so I float on cloud become water,
central sea surrounded by white mountains,
the water salt, once fresh,
cloud fall and stream rush, tree roots and tide bank,
leading to the rivers’ mouths
and the mouths of the rivers sing into the sea,
the stories buried in the mountains
give out into the sea
and the sea remembers
and sings back,
from the depths,
where nothing is forgotten.