Morning Yoga
Morning Yoga
The yoga ladies gather at daybreak,
drag plastic chairs over cracked earth
into straggling rows.
Bright greetings and murmured joys
flit lightly through the clustered groups,
conspire against the teacher’s drone:
“Bring silence to your Practice,
breathe deeply—inhale, sustain, and exhale—
listen to the sacred sound of Ommm. . .”
But the yoga ladies gather to gossip,
exchange the tremors of the day,
and for a while, forget their household chores.
Lotus flowers clog the green water of the canal.
Bougainvillea crowds the opposite shore.
The yoga ladies settle their saris and breathe.
Shaheen Dil is a reformed academic, banker and consultant who now devotes herself to poetry. She was born in Bangladesh, and lives in Pittsburgh. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. She has published two full-length books of poetry, Acts of Deference (Fakel 2016) and The Boat-maker’s Art (Kelsay Books 2024.) Shaheen has been a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange for thirty years. She also belongs to the DVP/US1 Poets and the Porch Poets. She holds an AB from Vassar College, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.
