Introduction To Held Breath
Some poems arrive with a destination already in mind.
Others simply begin walking.
Held Breath was one of the latter.
The starting point was a simple challenge: write about something that has been waiting. I knew only that whatever was waiting should not be named, and that the reader should be left wondering what it was waiting for.
From there, the poem found its own way.
I began with the landscape—the old bóithrín, the grass, the trees, the changing light—and gradually the feeling of waiting emerged from the place itself. Nothing in the landscape was in a hurry. Nothing demanded an answer. The further into the poem I went, the more the idea of waiting seemed to belong not to one particular thing, but to everything around it.
That was when I knew I had to resist the temptation to explain.
One of the things I am learning about poetry is that sometimes the writer knows more than the reader needs to know. A poem does not always have to reveal its answer. Sometimes it is enough to leave a few clues and allow the reader to decide what they see.
The poem also became another lesson in editing.
I am beginning to understand that editing is not simply correcting mistakes after the writing is finished. It is more like renovating a room from beginning to end—moving something that is in the wrong place, taking away something that does not belong, opening a little more space where the room feels cramped, and occasionally putting something back exactly where it was because, after all that work, it was right there in the first place.
Words have had to earn their place.
So have punctuation, pauses, line breaks and silence.
Some changes have made the poem clearer. Others have simply made it different. Learning to recognise the difference has perhaps been one of the most useful parts of the process.
Eventually there comes a point when another change may be possible, but no longer feels like an improvement.
That is when I put the pen down.
Held Breath is not my best poem. I don’t think every poem has to be. But it is the poem I could make from this idea, at this point in my journey, and I am satisfied that it has become what it needed to become.
And perhaps that is fitting.
Because some things are worth waiting for.
And some things simply continue to wait.
Held Breath
We leave the bóithrín behind us —
grass taller here, ruts softened over,
wind slowing as if it too
remembers to be careful.
At the wood’s edge, light
changes at once —
no harsh brightness, only green-gold,
shifting slowly, like held breath.
Roots twist above ground, old
knuckles of timber, gripping earth;
moss lies thick as unspoken words,
softening every stone and fallen branch.
The air smells of damp bark, turned
soil, fern fronds unfolding —
and beneath it all: stillness — not
empty, but waiting.
A wren flits from bramble to oak,
quick as a secret:
further in, the shapes of trees stand
like old sentences no one has finished reading.
Nothing rushes here. Rain hungers
less, sun does not pry —
everything arrives, passes,
leaves it exactly as it is:
rooted, steady, present —
holding space, as if something is due,
though no sign says who, or when, or why.
The ground rises slightly — an old line,
or a threshold, half-lost in ivy;
hare tracks press lightly in damp
earth, then vanish inward…
and all around, the quiet deepens —
not silence, but patience that
outlives seasons.
We do not cross further yet.
We only stand —
feeling how it remains:
always here, always open,
untroubled by hurry or answer,
breathing in light and shadow alike —
waiting,
waiting…
and we do not dare ask for what.
Copyright © 2026 Pat Fitzgerald
All Rights Reserved
Kings Quote:
We have to listen to what is being said, just as we must learn to see what is already before us.
bóithrín : Small Road, lane : BOH-reen
Thank You for joining me on this journey of writing and discovery. Poetry, for me, is a continuous learning process. A way of finding my own voice and writing style and exploring the beauty of words.
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Pat Fitzgerald
patman4u.com 