Private Yoga Instructor Santa Monica & Los Angeles Westside private yoga classes in-home or on-location Jennifer Pastiloff Contact Jennifer (310-926-0172) Yoga at home - comfort and convenience! |
The Collected Works of Jennifer Pastiloff ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE COAL TOWN ROUTE FROM LEWISBURG TO PHILADELPHIA I. Night presses its black body against mornings in these towns, darkness never lets up. Just presses down, down... So far down the buildings sag, their roofs so used to dark that any light makes them cringe, sink further in. They turn their tar faces from the sky and droop, bloated, toward the floor. I think of Shetland ponies: trained to trudge in coal mines, through dark damp spaces, weight on their small backs, taking fast, uneven paces. And how they must be used to it. The sound of their steps, hooves hitting hard ground, must sound like the tongues of sewing machines, clucking to my mother, keeping her company as she works all night, in basements, the television on mute. My mother with pins in her mouth, fingers pinching the fabric in place. II. I think of what coal mining could do for me: the lift, descent of a hammer breaking open dark parts of the earth, splitting what’s solid. Cracking. The pattern of days. Falling into one another the way all things without change tend to. I would develop biceps. My eyes could learn to see without light. Like the Shetland ponies'. Adjusted to darkness, a source of comfort, as they bump bodies, bang heads, crawl through soot and hard rock. Eophippus, original ancestor of these ponies, gradually grew over centuries, changed forms over and over, emerged from swamps to enter coal mines. Like him, I could adapt to living in muck. To traveling and feeding in marshes and swamplands. I could get used to anything. I too have changed forms. Emerged from dark wet tunnels, basements, buses. Capable of all kinds of change. j.pastiloff |
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