Yoga Poem #6

Yoga Poem #6


All right, it's pigeon's pose again.
My hips and knees confer briefly,
then issue a joint-statement to me:
Go to Hell. I look like a dinosaur-bird
brought down by a lightning bolt.

From distant corners of the Yoga
World, assistants rush to prop me up.
I am a Yoga Emergency.

Incidentally, I've never seen
a pigeon sit this way, but this
is a mere quibble, a coo.

The flexible women in class
seem to reach this pose with ease.
So I think of them, kindly, as doves.

I like these difficult poses because
they make life's absurdity plain. Here
I am, gnarled legs on red mat,
because I think it's good for me,
and it is good for me. Wow. Now

the women, the doves, lift off!
They fly around the room above
me, they roost on the air duct,
and they coo happily! Okay,
not really, but now we're in
forward-fold, and I'm so
relieved I hallucinate mildly.

Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom