Yoga

Open. Shut.
A red-tailed hawk yelps atop the green canopy,
Painted in sunrise.

Somewhere above,
Through cracks of leaf and branch,
Blue sky remains

As drops of rain
From last nights' storms
Filter in piddle and plod,

Falling from limb to limb
Onto the broad backs of
Walnut leaves,

A gentle shower in each breeze.
The bone white branches
Of Romeo's heart-sick tree

Stretch up from soft soil
To softer sky.
There is no end to this naming:

There is no space
Within infinitesimal moments
To declare all that is,

To release the floodgates,
Empty the reservoir
Of this pendulating consciousness,

Into sacred vessel,
Holy container:
This living word,

This flesh and blood
From which love and fear
Emerges,

Like a white shoot from a wet acorn
That perceives no distance
Between its self and sun

That cannot be conquered.
Light falls from heaven
Across the lichened bark off the oak trees,

Blue and green and brown.
Let there be,
In the beginning

And end.