Through the Throat

This throat you and I share

Has been bombarded,

Battered to the bone

With the good and the bad.

***

We used to not question

Our intake and our output

But now I realize this organ

Is key to health, spiritual and physical.

***

If you are what you eat,

And what passes down gullet

Has effect on the body

We must take care what goes in.

***

Fumes surpassing

Do not suppress a cough

But leave gaping holes

To never be filled-in.

***

This funneling tube,

This tunnel to a molten pit,

Should not be

Merely a dumping ground.

***

Regurgitation,

A long word,

Is surely an irritation

And an unnecessary one.

***

And when our voice

Gives words utterance

They could be

Damning or complementing.

***

But these words,

As offspring of our throat,

The spoken acts of will,

Will defile or purify ourselves.

***

So let us sing with one voice

And utter a cry of joy,

To raise up a note in laughter

And bestow peace to body and soul.