Yoga Poem

Li Po, my oldest master
I cannot
follow you up this mountain
is too steep. I sit instead
warm sun, parched grass
rustles like dried crumpled
parchment underneath my ass
& watch your ancient
buttocks disappear
cane supported you are
after all three thousand
or so years old
up over the next ridge
until you are gone
as clouds or smoke still
your voice singing:
flite of squawking migratory
birds coming or going, you sing
invisible, squinting
I imagine to the sky
beneath your hat
to see the same birds.
I sit I listen You:
it does not matter only
the movement matters
if you move you are alive
until you stop.

Today, I left the class
after the seventh pose
& sat in the cool lobby
sucking water
with its posters of impossible
postures trying to calm
my frantic paper
old man heart
gushed sweat.

Li Po, I thought, come back
bring me your cane
and quill & tonight
I will go home & write a poem
about forgiveness &
tomorrow maybe we will climb together
the mountain, maybe higher,
maybe not.