As Mourning Doves Persist

Yoga in the library. Pyramid of managers. Some whose legs cross and sit flush to the floor. Others who need a straight back chair. I realize I can breathe the rapid breaths that energize. But it's holding my arms up in the air, fingers laced together like a hammock, that is the hard part. Writer's cramp. Arms used to resting on the edge of the desk. Wrists on the raft of computer keyboard. Who am I to expect these shoulders to have the stamina of a teen. Teen on the monkey bars. Pulling up. I am grateful for these older and well exercised eyes. Blue is the emotion underneath the meditation on white palms one atop the other, lightning bolts from the fingertips.

Along the road out of Monticello, NM It's eight minutes after midnight and I cannot sleep. I crawl out of bed, fumble for the light switch in the study. I expect the dozing dog underfoot but she isn't there. I anticipate my daughter's television might still be humming midnight advertisements, but there is no light from under her white door. It is the eleventh day of the new year and I am too absorbed with significant insignificance to rest. I stay too late at work typing pleas to agencies with money to give to the agency where I work that is running out. I think somehow if I conjugate the perfect 350 word explanation for each question then I can single-handedly right the imbalance. But as I place my ear to the lonely pillow I realize that tonight, instead, I am no longer the crusader. I am thinking instead of a poet I have known for more than thirty years. His wife has just died from breast cancer and his handwritten letter was waiting for me patiently when I arrived ho...