Poems in Progress: Tiny Epiphanies

Stop for a second and think with me on
How beautiful this bit of time really
Is. Let’s focus on what we normally
Don’t notice. Like right now, our diaphragm
Is contracting down just slightly
And a small intercostal contraction
Of muscles between the ribs inhales
The air that was just in front of your nose.
Nothing, right? Just over a sextillion
Molecules are now in your nostrils.
And here comes the biggest revelation:
It’s not only oxygen. Nitrogen
Is the most numerous by a factor
Way over three. Then how, amongst the tillions
Of microscopic mites, does our body
Decipher the dioxide? Let us first
Follow that one breath down the trachea,
Through the bronchial tubes, and into air
Sacks, alveoli, waiting at the end
Of the lungs next to some capillaries.
Here’s where the manifestation happens:
Nitrogen, insoluble, is expelled,
But oxygen diffuses, and something
About its eight electrons clings
To hemoglobin flowing by in plasma.
In an instant a whole other journey
Occurs. All we have to do is exhale
And wonder at how no matter what else happens
Every moment is still miraculous.