Fresh Air: A New Season

Today is the first day of fall, of the autumnal equinox (at 5:18pm EDT) where the sun crossed the equator at the same time from north to south, fall for those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere (not you Aisling).

Yesterday I was reminded of this occurrence by my wonderful yoga instructor, Margaret, when she decided to quote to us the derivation of the words “aequus” (equal) and “nox” (night), while our class was in full inversion-stance—I was in forearm stand against the wall, others were handstanding, but you get the picture—and let me tell you how long these very definitions can be when fully upside down!

That said, the reason I love my yoga classes is that each one is different when it comes to movements and poses, but it’s the same mentally—everyone is encouraged to do each pose to your own body’s ability each day. There is no competition, there is no “I could sink lower in pigeon pose yesterday, so I’ll force myself to get there again today,” sort of thinking allowed. You do what your body tells you to do each practice and as long as you breathe, any position is okay. I’m learning a lot from my yoga instructors and I feel that they are very wise. I also know that when I was a kid I probably joked about yoga being for hippies or strange people who hum to themselves.  Now that I know what it entails, it's really hard.  But as I'm learning with each day, anyone be a yogi if they want to and I fully believe that anyone can be a poet, if they want to.

Here is a poem about an average person, looking at a leaf, feeling a new season and in a moment, becoming a poet-- because that's all it takes.

The Poet

Builder of words

streamliner of sentences,

the poet pens that sensation

fallen from the lower section

of the stomach's breath,

perhaps the breath after having sat too long alone.



Simply pitting adjectives

in the privacy of the mind,

the poet is a simpleton

who picks up a piece of everyday

and sews it in your pocket,

preserving fragments of days

shards of night shadows,

they rest on a patched pillow

unmoved and unmoving,

a passive epilogue

to a marathon of moments.



You, labeled unpoetic, bent down,

removed the midsummer leaf

newly fallen from a brittle tree,

off the shoe trodden pavement.



Perhaps a particle of your iris

saw its own image

in the red flush

smeared in wax

across its paper frame-

a crimson apparition

of a fall not yet conceived.