Grounding
By Dr. Elvie Victonette B. Razon-Gonzalez
I go to the mountain just to breathe.
Far from the impending stench of death
I have smelled one too many,
I want to escape and run
away from someone whose staccato breath
forms an imaginary mist of mourning
before morning sets in.
Here the poppies and mosses whoop with laughter
and they come undone.
Far from the cloying scent of Clorox floors
I take in the rain-drenched grass
and the whiff of clouds as they passed
and already my heart seems free of wanting.
Far from the cogs of malady:
steel charts clanking on stations,
stretcher wheels whizzing by,
a cacophony of codes and flat lines.
I go to the mountain just to breathe,
to walk barefoot and to touch the earth’s warm hand.
Each time I feel the jolt of its graze
from the tip of my toes
to the roots of my hair.
On the mountain, I am closer to the sun
where there is so much silence
that I can hear my old voice
as I run across the street and catch dragonflies
with my wild hair and restless legs.
I go to the mountain just to breathe
only to return changed
by the simple act of breathing
I often take for granted.
Dr. Elvie Victonette B. Razon-Gonzalez is a gastroenterologist and clinical epidemiologist practicing in Iloilo City. She is a consultant of West Visayas State University Medical Center, Medicus Medical Center, Iloilo Mission Hospital, and Iloilo Doctors Hospital. She writes, “This is a poem I wrote after heading to the mountain to ‘breathe.’ This pandemic made me turn back to the things that matter the most in life: God, family, nature, and our lives within.”
