This Mortal Coil

A yoga teacher’s goodbye

This mortal coil holds us tight, but the veil is thin.

From the moment we slip in to this world, we are already leaving.

Our fates are all the same, so why does it pain me so, to see you go?

They say that only the good die young. You must have been that good. For you are too young.

But yet, you’ve lived.

You’ve given this life all that you had.

I am sad.

But I can still see you hula hooping, or holding a handstand on a sunny Sunday morning, when yoga was our church and the golden light spilled through the slatted window and landed on your face.

It’s like reality has shifted and swallowed you up, the friend I’ve known for twenty years, the one I’ve shed tears with when your dog and my kitten died.

We’ve traveled this yoga path together. I was the one who stood up in front of the class. But, really, I think you might have been the teacher of joy, of how to love a dog named Tara, and of how to hold your breath for two minutes straight when we had that yogi party talent contest.

You dove down, that summer night, to the depths of the pool.

You shimmered in the flickering light.

I worried about you.

What did you see?

Will it be like that for you now?

Like looking through a plane of glass to the other side? Except that you won’t be able to swim back through.

They tell me that you are close now.

None of us can hide from death.

But you’ve taught me one final lesson, my dear friend — how to leave this world with pure delight, with love, with inner sight, and with satisfaction of a life well-lived.

I will always see you in the rippling light of the pool, and remember when you burst back through, laughing and asking how long it had been since you had taken that last breath.

I will also always see you in the dust motes dancing in the sun on a Sunday morning, when you are not with us anymore in yoga church.

You might not be doing handstands, but maybe you are looking back through that veil, watching us, reminding us to laugh when we fall, knowing that someday we will all be there with you.

But, for now…Tara is waiting.

For Jeff…

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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Poem and photo ©Erika Burkhalter