99poems/ease

The morning light reflects
on his computer screen,
I lean back to contemplate
the shift that is accruing
in my life –
pushing myself less but
that is not quite it –
daily there is a greater ease
in how I live.
When I leave home
I do fewer errands
and return less frazzled,
less removed from who
I am.

I’m giving up my gift
for complication,
my tendency to tributary like a river,
until I don’t know where I am.
The flow from this to that,
less dangerous than it used
to be when I would find myself
baffled by how I got where
I was.

Compulsion has eased its grip,
if only because I am too tired.
The purpose tremor from trying
to move my life to a better way
that required I stand over myself,
orchestrating my every move,
has become less necessary.
Enough to allow me to breathe.

I feel my rib cage open,
my solar plexus relax.
This is why I tried
to meditate, to walk
to eat small beans,
relinquish tomatoes.
And all the other small changes,
beginning with giving up sugar
in my coffee and then the coffee.
Black tea traded for green.

It has been a slow process, cleaning up,
starting at the cellular level.
Not something I could ever do
by decision,
as it appears some people can.
This morning a small earthquake
shook us not quite awake.
In my mind I was in the doorway,
confused if the bathroom doorway
counted since it lacked a frame.
Afterward I went back to sleep,
that has always been the problem.

1/13/99