HEART BEAT
Anne Whitehouse
The rhythm of life is life itself,
the body’s timekeeper
that recedes as it advances,
like the sun slipping
past the horizon
and reappearing
on the other side
of the world.
Author's Commentary: “Heart Beat” is one of what I hope will be a series of anatomy poems inspired by an anatomy class I took, Anatomy Studies for Yoga Teachers. I never studied anatomy before, but I am now fascinated by it. We all have a body and the workings of our bodies are often mysterious and unknown to us, despite the fact we live in them and through them.
MEDITATION
Anne Whitehouse
Alignment is the key
that opens the door to concentration
only when I know my body at its limits
can I find balance
moving into stillness
yoking the opposite
tracing the well-worn paths
of my scars
forming them following them forsaking them
every day I practice my death
feeling the silence
dappled rainbow
cast by stained glass
on the walls
the stone floor
A field of cattle and the dead branch
of a tree where cattle egrets roost at dawn,
cool sound of rippling water
as a red darning needle
makes invisible stitches
up and down in the air
up and down
Anne Whitehouse is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Meteor Shower (Dos Madres Press, 2016), as well as a novel, Fall Love. Recent honors include 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Prize, 2016 Common Good Books’ Poems of Gratitude Contest, 2016 RhymeOn! Poetry Prize, and 2015 Nazim Hikmet Poetry Award. You can find her on Twitter at @anne_whitehouse.
