Category: Poems

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My Dance Card

The law of impermanence states that everything changes

the curve of the river the child the flower the state of grace.

Approaching the bluff today I, crestfallen, saw that the

fantastical dancing man, the luckily shaped branch of a fallen tree,

was gone, not just broken off but completely missing, no trace of him.

Only yesterday I’d rested happily in the thought that the woods are

ever changing, always fresh, rejuvenated every season, every day.

All well and good until the dancing man disappears without so much

as a by your leave, my dance card lying empty in the palm of my hand.

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Clutter

Saucha was our lesson today, a word

referring to purity of thought and body,

yogic cleanliness, clarity, orderliness.

A quick glance at my messy studio

reveals a distinct lack of the latter.

Piles of papers fill my desk, cover the printer,

lie upon, let me just say it, practically every

flat, semi or slightly flat surface therein,

preventing the use of a fan on these hot days.

Items I might need one day rest in various spots

hither and thither where, when the time comes,

I imagine I will either recall exactly where they are

or find them easily amidst the chaos,

a naive imagining oft proven false.

One day, I tell myself, I will have all of it

organized, put away, filed, ordered, the many

surfaces dusted, the potentially useful spaces cleared,

a soothing tabula rasa in which to work.  One day.

This pure thought lies mouldering in my cluttered brain.

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A-scampering

And so we trip along the paths of wood and meadow

taking in everything, the call of the pileated woodpecker

sending a ruffle of ahhhhh! through my body

the light in the trees the cool touch of the morning air

the rasping of cicadas, the scampering of my two dogs

the wild devotion with which they apply themselves

to this quotidian place as if they have never ever ever been

here before, as if every leaf and stem is brand new

as if Life itself has just this moment burst open in them

and sent them rocketing down the path.

 

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Morning Yoga

Sycamore leaves dance at the yoga studio window

in the brightening light from pre-dawn to full sun

colors smoothly altering in the wakening day.

We breathe in, out, slow, fast, pranayama, mindful

becoming warriors fish pigeons dogs camels children

ending as is fitting a room full of corpses heavy

on our mats grateful for another day of Life.

 

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Dog People

He stopped short of saying he likes dogs better than people

as if any of us standing there in the midst

of that pile of dogs would take offense

as if anyone was taking note keeping track

totting up points for or against rather than

remaining ever so busy in our minds’ eyes

comparing our own dogs favorably

against all the others.

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Oh Oh Oh

Gently and gently over we go

end over end and tumbling so

in love and out and to and fro

over our own heads into a flow.

Everso tenderly down we go

deeper to depths we did not know

slipping and dipping down ever so slow

happily saying yes never no.