Precious Rest
Yoga Poetry
Not Rare But Precious
Think of what’s not rare but precious.
~ Ruth Gendler
The gift of light. Of dark.
The squeaky swing set
that’s really a blue jay
searching for love and gravity.
What tells you to lie down.
Why standing back up
each morning is precious
as breath or clouds splintering
into rain dissolving the drought.
The horizontal day that turns
into the vertical night,
the stubble on the path
between the furrows of labor,
hope, and need. Any curve
wheeling toward the horizon,
all the dreams of finding
your house has extra rooms,
the ease of a broken love
suddenly making sense,
the return of a lost locket
from childhood, and in it,
your grandfather’s face.
Waking this afternoon to
thunder, the smell of rain.
Precious Rest