The Lotus Position

was never comfortable, was it?
And when I was a kid
we would, both accurately and not,
call it “Sitting Indian Style.”
So that wouldn't do.
And to pray without ceasing
was hard enough on Mt. Athos.
Hell, it doesn't even work in novels,
so that was out too. Then I started to get a bit down.
I mean The Oversoul was all well and good,
and I still dig the fact that Svetaketu and I
are both made of honey; I sometimes picture us together
riding in the back of an old convertible,
his dad driving with one hand,
all of us resplendent in gooey gold
getting the seats sticky without a care in the world,
but when someone cuts us off and we ride up to his window,
I still struggle to see the honey in his eyes.
And that the Enlightenment
is already the name of an Epoch
passed is enough to make me rise from my room
to mount my bright red bicycle
and ride, fast and deep into the soft glow of an empty night
until the wind on my face becomes itself
the only prayer that I know.