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?