Yin

By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer*

after an hour of yoga with Erika Moss

Curled on the earth
like a small animal,
I bury my nose in the grass
and breathe in the surprising sweetness

of spring green and purple bloom
and soil still damp from last night’s rain,

and though my eyes are closed
the desert sun enters anyway,
infusing my inner world
with radiance, with red.
There are so many ways
I work to hold myself up,
but in this soft moment,
I notice how nothing
is asked of me and how,
when I am still,
the world I might ignore
invites itself in.

There is such a thing,
says my friend,
as the back of the heart.
It is, she says, like the dark side

of the moon.

I honor that dark side,
that quiet, shadowy terrain
that is no less necessary,
no less true for being dim.
There will be a time to unfurl,
to open, to shine, to rise,
but in this charmed interval,
I sink deeper, deeper
into what is cool,
what is quiet,
what is beyond my knowing.
The interval builds a nest around me.

I do nothing and feel
how I am held.

* Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer wordwoman.com. Subscribe to receive free daily poems and please consider making a donation. TEDx talk The Art of Changing Metaphors: TEDX Rosemerry Trommer