(“Italian Dawn “, Jane Kohut-Bartels, watercolor, 2003)
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–
Bhava Yoga
Morning’s roseate sky
Has been blasted away,
Branches now whirligigs
Swirl with a fierce southern wind
As windows rattle in frames.
A tattered umbrella
Shades from a relentless sun.
I listen to Bhava Yoga
The vibration of Love,
Where imagination meets
Memory in the dark.
Yet surrounding these soothing tones
The world outside this music
Conspires to disrupt, sweep away
All thought, reflection.
The fierce wind gets my attention.
I can not deny its primal force.
Still, the pulse of Bhava Yoga
Draws me within,
Feeds imagination with memory,
Calls forth something as enduring as the fury outside,
And I feel the pulse of the infinite.
==
We are like birds,
Clinging with dulled claws to
The swaying branches of life.
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2014 (from Pitcher of Moon, Amazon.com, 2014)
Tags: Bhava Yoga, d'versepoets pub, poetry
Lady Nyo's Weblog 
February 9, 2017 at 8:52 pm
Love the focus of not being disturbed in the best of moments. We do need that, but so often we fail and become distracted by those harsh winds. May those claws be strong to keep us from falling.
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February 9, 2017 at 8:55 pm
Nature always has such a wonderful and yet at times overpowering influence upon us…I thought this was beautiful Jane…
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February 9, 2017 at 8:59 pm
Thank you, Michael. I am always overpowered by Nature. And food. Thank you for reading and your lovely comment.
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February 9, 2017 at 9:01 pm
My pleasure Jane and speaking of food, breakfast awaits….
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February 9, 2017 at 9:01 pm
Bjorn…I can trust you always to get at the point of a poem. Thank you! You see things in these poems that I either have forgotten or never saw. Those harsh winds are certainly blowing. I sometimes think I am transported to early Nazi Europe….I know now what my relatives were facing. Sorry, for the overt politics….but those harsh winds are ablowin’.
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February 9, 2017 at 9:02 pm
LOL! Michael…my favorite meal. Chow down, friend!
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February 9, 2017 at 9:03 pm
I shall!! 🙂
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February 9, 2017 at 9:04 pm
Indeed… and we need to read more Bob Dylan as well…
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February 9, 2017 at 9:12 pm
So beautiful. Brings to mind how easily we forget the moment. You gained in this poem, staying in your center and relishing the music of the moment.
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February 9, 2017 at 9:22 pm
Ah, the harsh winds. I am ignoring them all. All of them. I love the painting. BTW, when was the guy who questioned if a woman could paint and write poetry? 1823>?
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February 9, 2017 at 9:39 pm
‘I feel the pulse of the infinite’ gorgeous line!
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February 9, 2017 at 10:34 pm
Thank you, Jane! I like that line, too. Sometimes I surprise myself….as do we all! LOL!
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February 9, 2017 at 10:45 pm
Yeh! 1823…he has been living under a rock apparently. Even under a rock, if not Judy Chicago, et al….there is my favorite…Hildegarde of Bingen. LOL! Sometimes it’s a struggle with painting. Nobody notices…except blasts from the past! Today, Flicka Johnson, a dear friend from Y2K after all these years…..recontacted me on fb. And my first agent (and last) Steve New from Devon, a wonderful falconer and his Harris Hawk, “Siggi”..contacted me. Even before Y2K. I did a couple of paintings of Siggi….a really smart and social hawk of Steve’s. Oh, I haven’t heard back, but Hawks usually have long lives. Siggi used to sit on the back of Steve’s seat in his car and swoop with the road. He was a beautiful, young tercel. Steve is a wonderful friend and had great empathy and compassion for people. Lovely man. Thank you, Toni, I’m wandering here….and so glad you have returned. Hugs!
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February 9, 2017 at 10:48 pm
Thank you, Helene. I WISH I could follow my own advice to myself ….LOL! I do forget the moment….I life in apprehension of the next hour. With 9 cats here, 4 dogs and a flock (though not huge) of chickens….I am distracted by outside life. LOL! I need to get back to the message of that poem! Thank you, Helene….What you have said here, reflects what Dr. Rollo May said in “The Courage to Create”….a marvelous and wise book. Thank you, sending you warm hugs in your cold region.
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February 9, 2017 at 10:50 pm
LOL! I don’t know about reading BD….but listening to his music is like the earliest Bruce Springsteen. Most everything else in both musicians was lost on me after the first few albums. I am sure I am the poorer for it, too.
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February 9, 2017 at 10:50 pm
We are like birds,
Clinging with dulled claws to
The swaying branches of life…. what a great image that is.
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February 10, 2017 at 12:39 am
Thank you! I think today this applies even more. Sad.
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February 10, 2017 at 2:26 am
I liked the last three lines about the birds clinging to the branches of life. I am unfamiliar with bhava yoga but it seems, after some searching, to be a yoga practice centered on emotions and enjoying life, but I might have this wrong.
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February 10, 2017 at 2:38 am
Ah, not an easy task to be in the moment. We do what we can, as it comes. Have a great evening Jane.
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February 10, 2017 at 7:59 am
I usually wonder if I haven’t pinched it from someone else 🙂
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February 10, 2017 at 4:21 pm
An ode to the transcendent reality that sits enduringly underneath all strong and wild winds.Let them blow.
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February 10, 2017 at 5:18 pm
Agreed, Paul….thanks!
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February 10, 2017 at 5:21 pm
It happens! I think over the course of many years of reading poets, you do pick up some lines or inferences. I did with a very early poem: “Quiet Birds, I haven’t turned you into metaphors yet” .I used the very first line of this poem that I never read, told the famous author, and apologized….now I give credit to him (George Szitzes) whenever I use that poem….And my poem is nothing like his I am told.
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February 10, 2017 at 5:28 pm
I’m too ignorant of contemporary poets to know if my lines look like someone else’s. I wonder how much allusion to Yeats or Shakespeare creeps in though.
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February 10, 2017 at 5:54 pm
LOL Jane! for all of us, and our work is the better for it!
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February 10, 2017 at 7:41 pm
And they don’t mind since they’re dead…
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February 10, 2017 at 8:05 pm
Maybe WE don’t mind since they’re dead….
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February 10, 2017 at 8:10 pm
You think they might?
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February 10, 2017 at 8:16 pm
Nah….they live on through our work. Or so I hope so.
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February 10, 2017 at 8:23 pm
I wouldn’t like to think I was pissing off Bill Shakespeare…
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February 10, 2017 at 8:27 pm
Better him than Mussolini.
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February 10, 2017 at 8:29 pm
Agreed. I would not want to piss off Mussolini.
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February 10, 2017 at 8:35 pm
LOL! When someone really annoys me….I tell them I hope they find berth in Hell sitting next to Mussolini. He was such a rotten character…especially to women. So, if the person (alive) is evil enough….they belong in that particular circle of Hell.
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February 10, 2017 at 8:40 pm
Haha! You really don’t like Mussolini, do you? He’s probably throwing bricks at Hitler right this minute.
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February 10, 2017 at 10:17 pm
Possibly. One of my earliest memories is a program about the death of Mussolini. Every time I came into the room, my father made me go out. It was years before I knew the scene of Mussolini being strung up by his heels was what my father didn’t want me to see. Mussolini was notorious for his behavior towards women. He was the personification of brutality.
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February 11, 2017 at 11:07 am
At least the Italian people also thought he was a brute and got rid of him. There are a few others I can think of who could have done with the same treatment.
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February 11, 2017 at 2:09 pm
I can think of a whole lot of them….
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February 11, 2017 at 2:19 pm
Frightening, isn’t it?
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February 11, 2017 at 3:13 pm
Yep.
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February 11, 2017 at 3:43 pm
I’d like to just climb into your painting and rest there awhile
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February 11, 2017 at 5:00 pm
LOL! Me, too, Sweetie….me too. But I would take a sandwich with me. LOL!
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February 11, 2017 at 6:01 pm
and coffee
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February 11, 2017 at 6:49 pm
Maybe a bottle of wine, too.
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February 11, 2017 at 9:10 pm
Where imagination meets
Memory in the dark.
swept me away!
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February 11, 2017 at 9:19 pm
Thank you, Nan! I like that phrase, too.
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