The video below is a gorgeous dance called Variations on Surya Namaskara by Philip Askew and Lydia Walker, and it inspired me to write a poem, so that dance, yoga, and poetry can all hang out together here:

 

Dance with Ghosts

This is the way you lean on me
the way you float, and fly, and slide, and heavy on me
This is the way we walk together,
beautiful as ice forming, and as incomprehensible,
as gravity defying, in icicles, in
breakable glass, in the cold.

This is the way I stand, solid, rock still
as if you weren’t ghosting over my belly
and the fronts of my thighs, all the time
as if you weren’t clinging, and couldn’t
fly back home on gusts of wind on
days I want you to, and days I don’t.

So I move too, I must, you are
always asking me to dance and I
am always taking your hand, wishing
I knew how to do it better wishing
I could hold you up but it’s
you that lifts your palms and laughs
as if we weren’t down here struggling together

So it’s me that lifts and jumps and floats
it’s me that breaks glass, that slits open hearts,
that yells and cries and breathes and grabs your hand
its me that gives up, travels, swims, forgets
that you are just a ghost.