I.
What is yoga? Please answer in complete sentences
totaling no more than our goal of 108 words.
Or 216, or any multiplier of that original number.
Be brief but thorough.
This question appears on the final exam.
Everyone who breathes
must take the exam
eventually.
The good news is, everyone
who takes the exam passes it
eventually.
II.
What is yoga?
Yoga is a poem your body recites to itself.
The poem is read by everyone we meet
and, as in all the best art, each reader
brings themselves to yoga
and writes their own part into this
unfolding work.
On the days when you’re awake,
you hear it everywhere and are inspired
to help write this brief haiku, this massive epic,
with stanzas scribbled
by checkout clerks and prep cooks
master teachers and old men pulling dandelions
from their manicured lawns
with a tool especially made for this task
Right this minute, it’s being written
by honeybees buzzing in the orchard
by Arjuna on the battlefield
by Vishnu, who dreams it up on the ocean waves
by all of us whenever we open
another one of our doors to the world.
This stanza, for instance,
was written just this morning
when one of us turned off the window fan
to listen to the birds.
