The Borrowed Breath

By Don MacLeod

How do I describe what these poems are about? Connecting to the Creator? Finding peace and happiness? Finding love and loss? Eluding the darkness that roams through our consciousness? Yes, that would be how to describe them.

Most of these poems are based on the deep desire to know God. Since I was a child, I was awakened to the knowledge that there was more to this world than what most people see. Though there is no way, in truth, to explain or describe that transcendent place or the connection when it happens, this is my attempt to put that experience of the longing and the connecting into words.

We have removed God to Heaven. We have pushed God to only be experienced after death. So why would we experience God here and now? From what I have seen and experienced, God is not far away. God is so close that you won't believe it. We are taught God is omnipresent, but I find that most people don't appear to believe it or live like it. What most people practice and act like, is that God is in Heaven. When you die, you will see God, is what people actually believe. No, if God is omnipresent, God is here NOW. Right? So we don't have to die to see, feel, touch, experience or be with God. Believe and think what you want, but I am telling you, God is much closer than you think. Some of these poems are an attempt to describe those moments.

There are also poems about connecting to others and the challenges and growth that brings. The most we can do as a human is try to be vulnerable and connect heart to heart. We are taught not to expose ourselves that way, because you will pay for it socially. People will be mean. They will. Time to change that. It is time for us to allow each other to be tender and not immediately smash the other person for it. We don't have to toughen up for the cruel world, we have to change the cruel world. That means WE have to change.

Know that God is looking through your eyes. As Alan Watts said,
“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don MacLeod
• Release date: May 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781947261037

Don MacLeod

Don MacLeod was born on the coast of North Carolina in ancient times. He was dragged about the South by his parents ending up in mountains of North Carolina. He tried college and felt like they weren't teaching what he wanted to know there, so he left. During his adventures, he was kidnapped by a Viking Queen and taken off to the frozen tundra of Minnesota for decades. He did marry her happily and lived with her until her death from ovarian cancer in 2012. During her illness, he started informing people through emails of her journey through treatment and then remission. When she went into remission, he missed writing the updates and after several author friends encourage him to write, he decided to work on a novel that had floated around in his head for 20 years. In the process, poems started coming out much to his chagrin. Not his forte at all. He resisted while working on multiple novels, but they kept coming out. When his wife died, more came out over the years until he finally realized there were enough for a book. "The Borrowed Breath" was published and he then found an old poem that he did not remember and decided to look through old writings and found 20 more that were forgotten as well. In that time of looking and after "The Borrowed Breath" went to press, many more had come out and now "Wait in the Stillness" will soon be published as well. Hopefully novels and short stories will follow soon too.

Book preview

The Darkness Rose

The Darkness rose

It said, I am powerful

I said, Yes

It said, I am more powerful than you

I said, Yes

It said, I can envelope you in despair

I said, Yes

It said, I can envelope cities in despair

I said, You can

It said, I can swallow and envelope entire countries in darkness and despair

I said, Yes, you can

It said, I can take this world and enclose it in hate and anger

I said, Yes, yes you can

It said, I will take you first

I lit a candle

The Blind

I Walk Through This World blindly

Occasionally I see the other blind that I walk with

Occasionally they see me

We are looking straight ahead or at our seeing devices

But our seeing devices are blind as well

We think we are seeing

But our eyes aren't even open

Our hearts are too afraid to see

Fear is our constant companion

Grooming us for this world that we cannot see

Reminding us how to be for the things that we cannot see

Coaching us in a world that doesn't exist

Pretending to protect our hearts when it knows it can't

Our hearts get hurt no matter what we do to protect them

So I say

What's the difference

Why try to protect something that's going to get hurt any

Live out loud

Show your heart

Love people with all your heart

Don't care if they're going to love you back

You're going to love them anyway

So why fake it

Why pretend like you don't

Love them out loud

It's the only way to not be blind

You start to cure your own blindness

Others will see

They will want to cure their own blindness

Because Ellen Can't

Because Ellen can no longer paint with her hands and