Old bag of bones
upside down,
what are you searching for
in poetry,
in meditation?
The mother you never had?
The child in you
that you did not conceive?
Death?
Ease from fear of death?
Revelation?
Dwelling in the house of clouds
where you imagine
you once lived?
‘Born alone,
we depart alone.’
Someone said that
during meditation
& I nearly wept.
Oh melancholy lady
behind your clown face,
behind your wisecracks-
how heady it is
to let the ideas rush to your brain!
But even upside down,
you are sad.
Even upside down,
you think of your death.
Even upside down,
you curse the emptiness.
Meditating
on the immobile lotus,
your mind takes flight
like a butterfly
& dabbles in bloodred poppies
& purple heather.
Defying gravity,
defying death,
what makes you think
the body’s riddle
is better solved
upside down?
Blood rushes to your head
like images that come too fast
to write.
After a life held in the double grips
of gravity & time,
after a headfirst birth
out of your mother’s bowels
& into the earth,
you practice for the next.
You make your body light
so that in time,
feet first,
you will be born
into the sky.
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