three poems
The Ten Yin Yoga Class Songs*
1. It feels good being
close with my bones.
What do you do
when words come to
you with no paper?
Listen. Count their rhythm.
2.I invert my legs
and then they
shake. What is
left over? Residue.
3. Goldilocks. How does
it feel? Just right? I slide a block
to the crop
of my back. It feels
like the earth
reaching up.
4. My eyes are covered.
Lengthen your
release,
make it the horizon.
Clouds can tell you
there is land beneath.
5. Vitarka mudra.
I gesture
in /
to /
with /
the rain.
6. Strings come to
me with
a bow.
The next poem
plants its seeds.
7. Muladhara chakra.
My hips are pulled back
in to space.
8. ...Dot dot dot...
I come back and
9. I realize I have
been composing
a poem. I realize
the title. I think of
the people I’d like
to gift this chapbook to.
10. My head falls towards
my heart. I am
inside myself. I
repeat the song again.
*This title and format was inspired by The Ten Oxherding Songs, a famous series of paintings and poems in Zen Buddhism.
Circumambulate
I circumambulate
the streets.
They tic tac
toe grids around me.
In the grid are
squares. In the square
is a center. The center is holy.
It is a sun. It is everywhere.
I am a planet.
I cannot help but orbit.
Shoes are not needed—
I absorb stories with
the soles of my feet.
I look through
the windows of
each fleeting car and hear
their radios passing by.
I look through
the windows of
every standing house
and listen for
their suppers.
I sense monuments
in the shadows of trees
and see artifacts in the
cracks of sidewalks.
I harvest lines from
the creekside and find
syllables fallen
in my lap.
I look at the petaled colors
of the ground and trace
the names of my friends.
I keep catching glimpses
of the moon. There are
faces, faces, faces,
neighbors on every corner.
I wave to every sun.
I see red and stop.
There are words on every sign.
I take the paper from my pocket—
all moments are noteworthy.
Nowhere Else
There’s no such thing
as a spilled milk
timeline. Every
moment is a
glass container:
holding, lidded
but always
seen, exactly
what it needs to be.
I carry a tall blue
candle between
rooms. I make each
footstep slow so
the liquified wax
does not overflow.
Rice scatters over
the floor and squishes
beneath my feet.
I collect the flattened
grains and put them
out to compost.
I rotate a basketful
of clothes
down too-narrow
stairs.
I pick my grandma
up from the carpet
and we laugh
about spelling
and then
I blow bubbles
with a little girl
before the soapy
solution scatters.
In a bowl
one lone onion
bursts
with months’
worth of green.
I make ceremony:
wrap it with a bow
and pour lukewarm
tea from high above.
Every unplanned
instant and
mundane moment
unfurls perfect
Portals.
This is the
landscape
of my life—
I can’t escape it!
There is
nowhere else
(could I,
would I
rather be).
Everywhere
is solid memory.
Meaning trails
behind
you and me.
Meer Singh is a lifelong learner. He is from Oneonta, New York and is currently a student at Hartwick College where he is pursuing an ISP (Individual Student Program) major entitled Community, Origins, and Creation. This major explores the role that creativity has in building strong, interdependent communities. As such, he devotes the moments of his life to creative expression through a variety of mediums (such as language, movement, sound, and color) and to the cherishing and uplifting of fellow living beings.