A Poem for Scorpion Pose
"I absolve myself for all the times I have turned my venomous tail against myself and towards anyone I have ever loved." - from Scorpion Pose by Corie Feiner
The Process
When a pose is named after an animal I find the poems can come — not more easily — but with more material to work with. Like when a sculptor sees the art form already taking shape in a piece of stone.
Except for one thing, I cannot yet… yet…
do scorpion pose.
I can practice it…
as I have many mornings trusting that one day my body will understand how to hold this sacred shape,
but until then I am somewhere in between.
One of the many gifts that yoga has given me is permission to play again and to see what I would have once perceived as failures as opportunities and progress.
When the idea first came to me to write yoga poems, I limited myself to poses I could “do.” When I reached the limit I set for myself, there was a whole horizon of poems that kept calling me.
I would say, This is it.
But they would sing, Keep going! Keep saying yes!
The wise words of the poet Yusef Komunyakaa came to mind, “...it’s not what we know, it’s what we can risk discovering.”
When I presented my stu…