Some Yogis in ancient India believed
\nevery person comes to this earth
\nwith a fixed number of breaths
\nallotted by the Almighty. Once we exhale
\nour last breath, we leave this life, whether we are six
\nor forty-six or ninety-seven.<\/p>\n
What if we each arrived
\nwith a finite number of words,
\nsay nine hundred million
\nwhich sounds like forever
\nbut we spend about seven thousand a day
\nmostly drivel and dravel
\nand when we speak our final word,
\nthe one at the very bottom of the basket
\n\u201cfly\u201d or \u201cfreeway\u201d or \u201cfuck\u201d
\nwe would promptly pass away.<\/p>\n
What if we kept words safe in a tattered purse or
\ntucked in winter boots in the back of a closet.
\nWhat if we savored words, spent them
\nwisely, not wasting them arguing over
\nwho last took out the trash
\nor how many angels can dance
\non the back of a bitcoin.
\nBut for sure take out a few for freshly
\nbaked bread or a pot of pink begonias,
\nwhen a simple smile won\u2019t do.
\nSpend two soft words: thank you
\nand notice how your step is lighter.<\/p>\n
%<\/span><\/p>\n Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Revie<\/em>w and Healing Muse<\/em> among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called<\/em> and Until I Couldn\u2019t.<\/em> She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters\u2019 Journey in Photography and Poetry.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some Yogis in ancient India believed every person comes to this earth with a fixed number of breaths allotted by the Almighty. Once we exhale our last breath, we leave this life, whether we are six or forty-six or ninety-seven. What if we each arrived with a finite number of words, say nine hundred million [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[492],"class_list":["post-14210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-signage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14210"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14214,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210\/revisions\/14214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}