body heart and soul

 

I could not hope

to touch the sky

with my two arms

(Sappho # 129)

 

 

I descend

the slippery drive

into Panterra—

a green cleft in

earth’s crust—

smitten with the song

of om,

driven by a guttural thirst

to expand,

condense,

invert my vision.

she waves me in

to truth,

I rise from the illusion

of the rickety ride here,

into

the company of others

who lay aside the bare

existence of the world,

to drop as a hungry babe,

sighing release —

the present tense,

joining the melody

of birdsong and

skittering ants on the skylights,

the awesome rising stars and moon

shining feral light

on this little life.

I begin in the plural,

walk to my mat as one

of many energies

theirs—mine—hers,

each of us opening

into breath

the soft heart of prana

singing in our limbs,

we move

breaking old patterns —

the separateness of lives

and then we exhale

into a single vibration.

she guides us

into positions

where we might

feel the flowing

stream —

the one life.

in this place land rises

soft with fern

and berries on

either side of

the yoga shala —

there is the sky,

an expanse of deep glory

above and within

the clay and stone of this earth

calling us to lay

down our ambitions,

and offer ourselves

to the primordial

home – stillness.