Tapasya

Gentle violence
Unhurried speed
Patient action

A passion to succeed, indifference to results
Striving for perfection, embracing deepest flaws
Constancy of purpose, riding on the tide of no fixed self

The friction of these opposites
Fuels a furnace, forging liberation
Breath, mind, stillness, movement intertwined
Tempering a weapon flexible and strong

Offered in return, burnt at this altar:
Second-rate movies
Paperback delights
Lingering over dinner with a beer
Sleep
Time stolen from a comfortable life

Embraced austerities
For what?
A modicum of wisdom
The recognition that a feeling is a feeling
Release from the recursive drama playing out with “I, me, mine”
Anchored in experience
Rewiring the brain
To be a touch less harsh
A bit more kind

And sometimes, rarely
Ecstasy
Or, at least
A measure of content

It’s worth returning to this practice, time and time again

Sleeping/Waking

Surfacing from crevassed dreams, I snap awake
To crisp air, chilled feet,
A scrolling list of obligations patterning the surface of my mind
Stones upon the clear streambed, mirrored in its flow
My thoughts gather, tumble and propel me up and over
Swing my feet to meet the floor—they sink beneath the boards,
I lurch, flail, fall and
Slam! Snap awake
To crisp air, chilled feet

I recognize my last awakening a dream
An utterly convincing fake, a mocked up world
That I, with absolute conviction, took for real
But now I am awake,
I think…
_______________________
Codicil

Stars wheel overhead
Briefly, life makes sense. Dawn comes
Insight slips away

Soundscape

Open Bouting
Tik tac, tik tac, tik tac, thwack
Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle thump
Schhhhhhhhhifff thwok
Tap, shuffle shuffle, tap, shuffle shuffle
Tap tap thwack
‘Opah!’
(Damn)

Lesson
'Hup!' Thump, thwack
‘Humph, not awake’
'Hup!' Thump, thwack
‘Better’
'Hup!' Thump, thwack
‘H’okay, pretty good!’

Relativity

The piste becomes a scale
At center, poised between “en guarde” and “fence”
A balance point
My opponent and I
Frozen in the moment when
All possibilities exist—offense, defense, feint and preparation
A place of ease and grace
Only pure awareness of what is
And what might be
A certain knowledge of what must be done

Of course we can’t leave well enough alone,
Passive in the prospect of an act,
Instead we slide the action forth or back
Time slurs
The moment shatters
Tumbles into instability

I push you to your line—
Perversely, I feel threatened
A wicked knot of fear expands
Stays my hand, delays my act
I know what should be done but cannot do
Paralyzed by seeing future states
Potential outcomes
Game, set, match

Pressed the other way—
I retreat, receding into history
Retracing histories of loss
Reliving how this has played out before
All too often ending with defeat

And so I battle towards the balance point
Where neither past nor future looms
Where possibilities expand
Where the bout is won, and lost
Both states being equally true
Until we look to see the outcome

Watch our foils—
Needles on a gauge of time and space and tension
Measuring potential in a span
Of 14 meters

Mirroring the world