Self-Portrait in Shoulder Stand

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.