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.”

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