Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Yoga meditations

Last summer, while visiting my mother in Georgia, I was able to attend a yoga session everyday for two weeks, sometimes twice a day. I kept my thoughts in the form of haiku. While not necessarily Jewish, yoga does seem to have the sense of mantra-like meditation that Jewish prayer evokes.

Yoga - nondoing

Here, now. No past. But, listen,

Yoga-nand, the birds!



Be here now, Ram Dass.

Hah! If you were Danna would have

You fly like a crow.




Hafiz, you preached joy

Through letting go of the past.

What, no more dead horses?




Orchid Hospital.

Sunbeam Hotel. Check in, gang,

The yoga is hot.




How did breath come to

North Augusta?

What wind blew it in?

Hope and love.




We must go slowly

Time is short. Yes! Sunbeam,

Crawl across my mat.




This haiku is all wrong.

But wait! Count the breaths: In, out,

_ _ _ _ _




Hafiz, your raw poems!

Blood, sweat, tears tell not enough.

But what a cliché!




A poem for Hafiz:

Summer sun --- Ah, forget it.

Let’s get drunk on love.




500 years ago Basho already knew what

Jim’s favorite pose would be:
“How cool it is

Putting the feet on the wall

An afternoon nap.”



A response to the Fire Hydrant Pose

from Richard Wright (Haiku: This Other World)

“With a twitching nose

A dog reads a telegram

On a wet tree trunk.”




Om Shanti, peace, peace

May there be peace now and to

the next Gentle Stretch


300 years ago Kogu ro Chiyo echoed Amy when she noticed:

“A morning glory

Has taken the well-bucket

I’ll borrow water”




King David sang praises

Higher, he thought, than the frogs.

But Hafiz, your praises!




Open heart surgery

This our first pose of the evening

Our surgeon, Daniel.




Cats do it, and dogs

Crows, pigeons, mountains, heros.

Yes! All love poses.




Hafiz, you said “I”

Turned to “we” when waking

You tickled God’s feet.




Pay attention, Hafiz.

That tickling could kill illusion.

What’s left? God’s real love.



A response to Hafiz concerning

his recent report of seeing angels

dance on the tip of my ear:

Thanks.




Kikaku said 300 years ago:

“The harvest moon:

Lo, on the tatami mats

The shape of a pine”


Today I could have said:

The morning sunbeam:

Lo, on my mat, it’s my good friend.

Please, no spider squish.




We can come to God

Dressed for dancing

or

Be carried on a stretcher

to God’s ward.

-Hafiz




While waiting for the 8:30 class, I read:

Nightingale weeping

and ceaseless ocean

moaning . . .

Soon, oh soon, the dawn

-Shirao




The sickly orchid

that I tended so . . .

At last

Thanks me with a bud

-Taigi


Thank you, Radiant Orchid doctor.




An inspiration from Hafiz

after my two weeks at Radiant Health:

Just sit there right now.

Don’t do a thing.

Just rest.

For your separation from God

is the hardest work in this world.

Let me bring you trays of food

And something

That you like to drink.

You can use my soft words

As a cushion

For your

Head.

-Hafiz




Hafiz, You said most everyone

is lousy at math.

That we spend time dissecting

The Invisible One.

We think:

This is the Beloved One,

He looks like this and acts like that,

How could that moron over there be God.

(So is this what you meant when you said

Zero is more fun than a God of numbers?

Or is my act of thinking really

just trying to dissect you?)




Sanskrit is confusing.

If English was good enough for

Hafiz,

Why not in yoga?




Meditation

In movement. DVD in play.

Pause . . .

Nature calls.




Pranayama.

Gentle Series.

See how remarkable

the ribbon!

Now untie it.




Hafiz,

even the last lines

of your poems

make a poem itself.

“We all stand in line

for the highest Gift.”

“As I dance with

Precious life today,”




When no one is looking

and I want to kiss God

I just lift my own hand to my

mouth. –Hafiz

Hafiz,

Is that pose in the Gentle Stretch

or the Workout?




Radiant Yoga?

Yes, even the spider knows

Grace, love, compassion.




Yoga is not love.

Love is the spider, freely

Crawling from the hand.




Dervish dancing, Hafiz?

I can barely make yoga.

“Hah!” Whose fault is that?”




Hayko said centuries ago:

The caged eagle

When lonely

He flaps his wings


Not the Gentle Stretch

with Davna. Here eagles fly.

Even elders soar.

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