Friday, April 25, 2014

Poem a Day: 25

Omission v. Submission

Today I discovered I'd left
two whole days
out of my course calendar --
just deleted them from the future
as I was composing the syllabus
last December,
and I wondered what it is
about my brain that does that--

lives three months ahead of time,
gulping down clumps of days,
chewing through months,
then hiccups somehow
or vomits,
spewing a few hours into
a timeless void,
a neutral neverland.

I don't want to be so distracted,
scattered,
and obsessed -- a chronological
control freak
who thinks she has her hands
firmly planted on a wheel that,
it turns out (time and
time again) doesn't
exist.

I'd like to be, instead,
a gray haired hag,
a woman relaxed into her
aging body,
a spirit who lives
in and for the moment, mind
still as the seconds slipping
past, a noticer
of every sensation, the sort
of person who
turns her hands down to the floor
and grounds herself --
instead of turning them up,
begging for that extra hit
of energy
to clash with the two cups of
burnt coffee she downed
right before yoga.

I want to bend down
at the end of my practice,
namaste,
for the "teacher in all things,"
with grace and attention --

but I fling myself into my lap
with clumsy monkey wonder,
already mentally rushing through
the next hour's trees,
flying high and fast
away from the ground,

up into a sky filled
with shimmering leaves and
sharky clouds and
diving parrots that
may never actually
happen.



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