Shavasana

Shavasana

During yoga class emotions surface,
tears come too, without warning.
A feeling of abandonment springs
out of the unconscious.
‘I am no-one’s child anymore,
nobody calls me their daughter’.

I lie on my mat at the end of class,
relax my body, struggle to still my mind.
Breathe in, two three, out, two three,
the weight of grief begins to shift.
I focus on the thump-thump of the drum,
singing bowl and a new melodious chime.

I’m a baby in a cot, I hear the same tune
a tinkle, a twinkle as the cylinder turns.
An image floats from a distant past,
a small wooden music box, long since lost.
Comforted by this sound and her presence,
I am still my mother’s child.

Poem by