Daisy's Story

Still in the vjnanamaya, that dimension of being that reflects our creative self. This poem from that place, that dimension, is about a real horse-being, one of my earliest horse teachers from the time when I began to remember:

Daisy's Story

When Daisy flips her head
you might think her
   skittish
      and head-shy
   just a stubborn child's pony
   with wily pony ways. 


You would be mistaken. 


When Daisy flips her head
she is telling you a secret
hers
and yours. 


When Daisy nuzzles your hair
listen
and listen with all of your heart. 


When Daisy touches your hands
remember
and honor that remembering. 


When Daisy flips her head
look
and look closer. 


What do you see? 


Is it a trick of the desert light?
spiraling impossibly
shimmering with clarity? 


Could it be the horn 
the horn of the unicorn?


Daisy has a story about that
Ask her to tell you. 

And just for fun, Daisy was the original 'bad-ass unicorn'. Daisy has long since passed over the rainbow bridge. But her gifts linger on, inspiring me to continually remember. Namaste Daisy, Namaste.

Old poems, new: Once I was...

(You might wonder what in the heck these poems have to do with yoga, animal-connected yoga?) In a word, everything. In a sentence, these poems are the product and the language of the vjnanamaya - that somewhat mysterious dimension of the pancamaya model for yoga for healing - between logical mind and emotion, lie our songs and our stories...)

Once I was a Cowgirl
(originally written in 1990, or thereabouts
and things have changed a bit since then!)


Once I was a cowgirl
wearing tight jeans
permeated with the honest scent
of the sweat
of my red-headed pony.

My dress boots were the color of
desert sand, my work
boots of red cowhide, they had
roper heels and I drove a green
Chevy pickup.

I tied my hair in a thick braid
It hung to my ass and swayed
with me
carrying my cue stick to the bar
for a long cool one.

The cue was handmade.
I never had to use it to claim my quarter
from the guy in the black stetson.
I shot an okay game, but
sometimes
I was just so hot.

Now I work with computers
I can't drink beer
and I go to bed at ten.
There are no coyotes here
my cue stick stands
warped in a closet.

I still have my name belt though.
It's handmade too, the deep hand-tooled roses
tinted a dusty red.
Backed in gold suede, backstitched white
my name carved in bas relief across the back
my initials in the tongue.

JLK

This poem is a kind of bhavana, bringing me back home to horses and sweat and who knew the desert sand boots would become the real desert sand of the Sonoran desert?

Old Poems New Again: Jaguar

Jaguar

You admire the black beast
her casual violence
her indolent yawn

Her ballast to the hunt
a life its own
a softly sinuous scimitar

You long to stroke her
to feel the incandescence
caress the patterned iridescence

You inhale from the pink maw
the rich and heavy breath
redolent with the scent of the eternal

You stare into her eyes
those golden flecks
those ancient regimes
surround the welcome dark
of the unredeemed.