Sun Salutes

Sun’s fingers reach

over the hills

(pausing first, of course, to inhale the beauty of that recently swollen river and admire his own reflection along the way)

through the trees,

and around the pavilion pillars.

 

Light Breeze, she travels with the Sun,

and reaches, sweeps, dances

over the warriors, too,

as they breathe

stretch

and move.

 

Surely some of them – if  not most – are seeing different scenes through their mind’s eye,

of fields like the ones near them now, but drier,

of hills, but flatter,

harsher,

of wind beating them brittle,

bites more searing from bullets not bugs,

begging to bring them back,

back to somewhere not here.

 

A fidget ripples through the bunch,

they try to dislodge the begging,

their discomfort visible.

Then we wait…

breathe

stretch

move.

A pause.

 

Again, the ripple.

We wait.

Breathe

stretch

move.

 

Repeat.

 

Breathe fellas!

Breathe in,

lift up.

Breathe out,

fold forward.

Ripple.

Repeat.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Then

they’re there: Here.

Now.

 

Even if for just an instant,

but Here they are,

beautiful.

Pain and hope, brothers in the same body,

as they finish their sun salutes.

 

–> Prefer to listen to my reading of the poem? You can do so by clicking the play button below.

 

The photo below is from the practice which inspired the poem, teaching wounded warriors in the gorgeous Texas hill country.

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* Sun salutations are a form of moving meditation frequently taught in physically-oriented yoga practices.