when my landlady knocks and I don’t answer


What I am doing is not yoga
exactly—it is the slight curve of waist
as it slips directly into one of the poses,

needing breath, even now,
to pronounce
what is not a pose but the body itself
becoming lion, mountain, half-moon.

It is the willingness to space each foot apart
so precisely, so directly, all the weight becomes equal—

half into toes, half into heels, each spreading
into the middle of our soles—

learning that the limbs, too, must breathe,
that the air we inhale stretches itself
into pose after pose of our daily steps,

so we must follow

with air and intention, until we stop answering telephones, stop
knocking on doors, stop needing the word meditation, and simply
breathe the world into our noses, our legs, the smallest stretch
of toenail in the room.

There is the light,
golden as it filters
through leaves

who have watched the river current rise
with spring runoff, a glint from nearby rocks
almost suggesting snow.

There is the softening, when the roar
slows to a hush, then whisper, iridescent maples
bristling as if to gossip about goings on

and lulls. All seems even and calm, until
eagle wings, sudden as an afternoon storm,
dip into the Dungeness, and a salmon wrestles

against those ancient talons that won’t let go.
There is the surprise of fog, so white, we see deer
only because they graze close to the windows.

Moving gently, shoring-up food
for winter, they browse, as if the fog
could shield us from anything,

as if those frail yearling bodies were immune
to the change, our calendars crossing over to October.
A buck so young it is hard to see his budding antlers

lulls about, close to the willow branches,
and I am glad for the fog, for the brief cover,
though I know the logic of the hunt.

Turning the knob on the front door
minutely, so as not to startle anyone,
I listen for the gossip of leaves, for the wisdom

of this moment, when fog appears like a promise
and the deer graze all they want
in the filtered light of morning.