_________________________________________________________________ Scroll Through Poetry

TECHNIQUE

A dancer walks down MIssion Street

with a cigarette in one hand and

a Latte from LaBoheme in the other.

She is a rainbow muffler, wrapped around thorax.

She is warming calves, pumping smoke,

dragging deep into the celery snap of

another San Francisco morning, and

itching to pull on the day's first leotard.

A cable car down Polk Street, bus across town,

quick stop at the cafe, and half a mile hoofing it

into the warehouse district. This is Mariposa,

the heart of dance. Industrial doors open

to cement hallways, open to smells of

kiln and oils, open to studios spaces

softened with sprung wood floors.

Always the care of the floor comes first,

the long push of the cotton broom across

each caramel board. As breath drops to

lower chakras, dissolves all dissonance,

and light streams in through southern

exposure. Today the spirit of Eric Hawkins

wields the broom. So quiet, you can hear

your breath. And a five, six, seven

and eight. and......

___________________________________

OH, INDIA

I kept listening to George Harrison

chanting in sanskrit, until a wanderlust

for Gujurat pounced on me

like a loose litter of lion cubs.

I was smitten and stricken,

enamored and terrified. I was

walking through intentions

of passport acquisition

and frequent flyers rejoice.

I was once a tiny monk

maybe eight or nine lives old.

I was wrapped in mango robes,

freshly spun from my mother's loom.

I was walking contemplation, eyes

in the back of my head looking in,

unless and until, looking through.

I was once a black haired woman,

bent at the well for water. Mustard flowers

surrounded her head, held the threads

of her shawl, mended together, the colors

illuminated her charity.

I was once the vessel she held,

the one that gathered the water.

Asato Maa Sadgamaya | Om shantih |

shantih | shantih || She was refreshment

at the banks of the Ganges. I was that

old gathering can.