RECIPROCITY

As plants breathe out and we breathe in,
The earth is one gigantic lung:
Flora supply our oxygen and
We are the breath of life for them

Water full of fecal waste
To flowers is nectar they can use
And filter all the poisons out:
They drink it to our health.

But wait! The air I breathe may
Have been exhaled by Socrates.
Pathogens from ancient plagues
Linger on in kinder form.

Noxious fumes from China
Stir up asthma in California
Inuits sing their melodies
Into each other’s mouths.

Here on our spaceship earth
We share the finite air.