Barbara Just Home from the Ashram

ROCHELLE JEWEL SHAPIRO

You had begun to laugh
over nothing, your mouth fixed
in a plummy rictus. But everything
was fine, fine, you claimed.

Still wearing your white yoga tunic and drawstring pants,
you must have been sitting on your bed, legs interlocked
in the half-lotus, mahogany hair, usually a glossy bob,
straggly, gray-threaded, stirred by the breeze, 
from your open window. You must have read
from the thick book with the yellow cover,
Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi.

Four days after you jump, I receive a copy
of the book in the mail with lines you highlighted:

The heart is the only reality
in forgetting the body.

How long does it take
to be reborn?

This body must refuse
to be buried.

“I” alone
being held, all else
disappears.

• • •

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