Millipede at an Ashram

Utterly free of mind, it attains
the centre of the meditating circle,
begins a series of yoga asanas—
curving, contracting, that pliable
form adopting with ease the postures
we strain for. At rest it becomes
a spiral of self-knowledge, a black
uroborous with silver spine.
One of us
not yet touched by enlightenment
flings the millipede out the window.
We stare into a hollow core of space
again, remember to keep breathing.
On a sunlit leaf, the millipede
nibbles, does nothing.