The Sum of My Parts

One part of me lives with my mother

Who can hear my footsteps from two floors above

Another lives with my father

Who silently waits for me to take his burden

Another with my sister

Who hopes I will guard her from everything that lurks

More with my grandparents

Both who have departed, and who I am lucky to have still

More with my friends

And haven't I been lucky to share so much with so many of them?

Another part breathes, restless, with the wind

And still another, at the peak, where I left it, with the mountaintops

Oh dear, there's one more, gently gurgling, sometimes roaring, 

As it meanders through the valleys and the plains

A huge part with those most beautiful of all creations 

Whom I have met, laughed, and played with.

And then one

With the one woman I can never forget

So many I have, and yet I feel alone.

And I wonder why

And then the last part, the one still with me wakes up

And tells me simply

Because you have kept your parts apart

Because you think they are far away from you

Because you think too much

And feel too little

Because you have forgotten

To just breathe

Just

Breathe...