Today the last day of a yoga adventure
closing with candles and ceremony
leaving me moist of eye and full of heart
happens also to be the birthday of my
four-footed angel, Miles, jolly hearty Miles
whose reward for being born three years
ago this day is a rawhide bone and many
choruses of Happy Birthday to which
he appears completely oblivious.
The penultimate day of a thing undertaken
dawns during the hour of that very thing
the most auspicious time the yogis say
for beginning an important venture being
the hour before sunrise and so here
we are poised ready for adventure
with great aplomb with great huge yawns
and with excellent intentions.
And now today the moon, a white crescent still,
lies just above the treetops in the East
with Venus above no longer below and
whomever else higher still above all
having changed places and these things
that are new to me and mysterious thus
ever more charming as are the many
yoga asanas the tales of Hanuman flying
over any obstacle touching the sun
the very thing of walking out from my house
before dawn viewing the firmament while
lying in a large room of familiar strangers
each to our own small space watching
the light slowly change out the narrow window
chanting Om once together making prayerful hands
silently rising at last and going forth to meet
our various sorts of days my own being
I strongly feel the most wonderful of them all.
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.
Apparently my one-week-old schedule of rising at 4:30 a.m. and going to yoga class is wreaking havoc on my memory and habits, as once again I completely forgot about my daily poem. Apologies!