The Breath

Often times when people are speaking we as the listeners focus on the words being said, the articulation, the phrasing, grammar usage, etc. However, I am curious to know how many of us take the time to listen to the breaths taken in between words. The sharp inhalation, disrupting an individuals flow of words, so that we might take in the moment to continue or explication. Often times this noise seems to be a sharp wheezing which once noticed, is difficult to separate from the information presented by the speaker.

"He breathed in its oxygen" (435).

With these small breaks for sustenance, do we realize how Lucretian and Stevensian we are?  By taking that moment, no matter how briefly, or aggressively, we are paying attention to things, the words, and living the imagination by allowing it to function through our words. This breath is perhaps what we will become after we pass on, no longer something so tangible as a table, but perhaps a subtle as a breath, gone in a moment, without notice, but with inherent importance, even if no one remembers that they are using it.

I challenge the class to pay attention to their breaths, how they function, their importance, and if perhaps we can take a moment of enjoyment from these breaths, some form of inspiration. Pay attention to the empty space, to the silence. In my mind it doesn't actually exist, we are continually filling it, just as Professor Sexson fills the margins of his Bible (and as I suppose we all should) we are continually filling the empty spaces around us.