Yoga Teacher

"A Baby Is A Yoga Teacher." ~Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

A baby is a yoga teacher.
A flower is a yoga teacher,
the morning glory, here and gone.

A raindrop is a yoga teacher.
A teardrop is a yoga teacher.
The ocean and the moon. Why?

Because they achieve loveliness
through aloneness,
eternity through perishing.

Time is a yoga teacher if you watch it
because it is not really there.
So is a trout flashing between rocks
in a mountain stream
when it vanishes.

The electricity of a cat doing nothing
is your yoga teacher.
Or the current in a wire birds love
to perch on that would kill you.

Anger is a yoga teacher if you gently
stay with it in your belly
and watch the alchemy of bullet lead
dissolving into sorrow,
the mercury of tears
into peace.

Your mother's death is a yoga teacher.
When she is gone, she is
the soil itself and whatever
is green.

Now listen to the most
distant sound you can hear.
It is your yoga teacher,
bearing you away into silence
on a chariot of sighs
with one graceful gesture,
the posture of annihilation.

One breath is the price you pay
to enter this ashram.
It costs more than you could ever keep.
Give everything away
to the yoga teacher
who stands at the doorway
of your next inhalation.

The yoga teacher's studio
is the stillness
between heartbeats.
Formlessness is perfect asana.

A sip of fresh water is your yoga teacher,
a mouthful of bread
melting into a smile for no reason,
gratitude for dust,
a groundless falling through your chest
into the radiant emptiness
at the center
of all these swirling stars.
_____________

Dedicated to all who must do their yoga program alone in quarantine, this poem actually made it into my book, "Savor Eternity One Moment At A Time."