Produced by Dennis Camire

This week’s poem is by Pam Burr Smith of Brunswick. Blackberry Books recently published her new collection “Near Stars: New and Selected Poems.”

Morning Yoga Class

By Pam Burr Smith

The bowl rings
four floors up
from the Thai restaurant.
We breathe and stretch

in its sweet reaching smells.
The morning stoves warm up
downstairs and we
in our own oven bodies

in cotton and sweat pants
the full aromas of mid day
unmixed hours away,
let clean even sleep

fall silent from our limbs.
In slow motion we extend
eyes closed to the tree pose
following the voice

which flows sure as a river
over our willing bodies enchanted
by aromas from the kitchen below.
Basil and coconut sing

the delicate alchemy of sustenance
into life performed in harmony
among us in slow prayer
another day’s food simmers.

Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu