Sirshasana (Head Stand)

Just a quick end-of-day post… work this week has been crazy with the boss out of town, so I haven’t had time to write. But I managed to sneak this one in for the Poetic Asides prompt of “risk”; I hadn’t done a yoga poem in a while, but then, I hadn’t done yoga until last week. Started working at a studio in order to get classes for free (and in fact must run there now), and loving it. The head stand is what I’m working towards. I still can’t do it. The yogi demonstrated for me last night, and gave me some tips, so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to master it eventually. But when I think of risk, I think about the fear of injury that holds me back (much more than the fear of failure). Will the benefits overcome that? We’ll see.

Sirshasana (Head Stand)

The worst part is the instinct of terror
once the legs are freed from the cage of gravity
and the crown begins to press into the mat.
You are not Atlas: there are seven bones
lining the gentle curve of the neck,
seven chances to split, shatter.
All of them tumble downward into the mind,
battering at a skull rolling on the floor
like a ball full of breath.

Your spine’s heartwood flexes gently.
Helium feet begin to rise: not so much
a leap of faith as
stepping off the ledge and not looking down.
The head strains at its forearm cradle,
waiting for some ancient fault line to snap back,
taking some nightmare (paralysis, death)
racing along with it.

Until you remember to exhale,
allow the world to invert itself. Feet planted
on the air, head buried, the whole body
a dagger stuck in the parquet.
You’re supposed to hold this as long as possible:
ten seconds when the lotus petals collapse
against the scream of what-if-i-fall,
two minutes once you get used to it,
and maybe forever, after you’ve gotten to know
upside-down,
that if the blade cracked in two,
there wouldn’t even be such a thing anymore
as surprise.