Poem of the Month, May 2009: Hero Pose

Heroic is She Who Stays (Virasana)

Heroic is she who stays even when she wants to run,

sits and watches as the sky darkens and falls all around,

who cries, can track the patterns of loss and find

the truth like a birthmark of her own making,

who speaks when to speak is to risk everything

and is silent when to be silent is to protest

all the noise that drowns out the quiet hum of the love.

Heroic is she who waits, wading through impatience,

willing to sit with rage, irritability, fear, annoyance –

all the makeshift states of the restless mind,

feeds the raucous morning birds whose song refuses silence,

abandons the stories that speed by like traffic going nowhere fast.

Heroic is the one who stays, even as the sky darkens and falls,

and finds herself in a pool of apple blossoms 
after a hard rain.

Written for Evolution by Jena Strong
May 2009