While the Air is Ours
Publisher Desc.
When George Floyd was slain May 25, 2020, the horrific killing sparked a
response heard in all corners of the world. In working through the grief and
sadness of this tragedy, I strongly felt the pull to respond artistically -
but struggled with how to do that. I constantly asked myself if it is even
appropriate that I, as a privileged white person, compose a piece of music in
response to racial injustice. I then came across Jorge Guillen's "While
the Air is Ours." The glorious gift of breath Guillen speaks about in
this text belongs to ALL of us. As I read the poetry, George Floyd's final
words "I can't breathe" came roaring into my conciousness. This is
a stark contrast to the poetry, which begins "I breathe, and the air in
my lungs is ... love and joy." That disparity invoked many questions
about this concept of "breath." Don't we all deserve this gift of
breath? Who are we to take the breath of others? Is the breath given to us
simply for living, or do we have a higher calling? As a white person, I can
acknowledge my privilege and use my breath so that the world becomes a more
just and equitable place. My partner Aleisha and I added the final stanza of
text as a challenge for all of us to do whatever we possibly can so that all
may have breath. A portion of the sales of this piece will be donated to
Black Lives Matter.
I breathe and the air in my lungs is knowledge now, and love, and joy, an
embodied joy that reveals itself to me only as a cleaving—so elemental that
it never breaks off—to the great succession of instants in which I continue
to breathe, embracing a part of the enormous airy clarity.
To live, to live, to seize from the rhythm of life all this world that the
air displays and—God knows how—that pre-existing beyond which raises its
gifts to the plateau of the ages for me because I breathe, I breathe from
moment to moment, in perfect contact with that reality which sustains me,
lifts me up and through stupendous equilibria leaves me overcome, astonished,
obedient.
We all breathe. We all have breath to give.
Let us use our breath so that others may breathe. We all breathe.
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