Each day,
my practice awaits.
The ability to move freely
through time and space
is never quite the same
as it was yesterday.
Some days, I can breathe
without constraint.
Other days,
the only way to breathe
in such a way
is by curling into a ball
on the floor
smothered in the weight of blankets
and cuddled up
next to my dog.
Tears stream down my face
as though every ounce of water
in my body could find
its way out through my eyes.
There is a specific kind of mourning
that meets me here,
face-to-face,
in every wake of solitude’s embrace:
the waking out of sleep;
the waking transition when the work day ends; and
the waking moment at the end of the practice,
when the final relaxation is over
and there is no way to further delay
moving through the world
and all the interactions
that are a reminder that he’s in a different place.
On the better days, I move gracefully
through a dancing synchronicity of my body and breath.
I feel connected, humbled, loved;
reminded of his presence as though he was still a permeating living energy.
The wake of solitude inevitably returns,
As does the waking to his love.