Here is an excerpt:
Physic
Garden XI
At
last the baby was asleep. She could slip away, escape last night’s dishes
stacked in the sink, the piles of dirty washing. She wandered down to the giant
willow tree that almost filled the lower part of the garden. Parting its
trailing branches she stepped inside, letting the leafy doorway swish closed
behind her. Inside tranquil yellow light filtered into a domed room, the
willow’s trunk a column at its centre. A secret world, baby and dishes far
away.
She
lay on her back and breathed. Long breath out, counting to four. She was tired,
but yoga would revive her. A few stretches and then her favourite, Sarvangasana, the shoulder stand. Head
and neck flat on the earth, hands supporting her back, she stayed inverted and
upright, breathing into the pose.
She
stared up at her feet and the leafy ceiling and smiled; it was so much better
this way up. Lately she’d been weighed down, as if she shouldered a massive
burden. But now this weight rested on the ground, a firm base from which spine
and legs rose up steadily like a plant stem from the earth. She felt light,
refreshed. No wonder yogis called Sarvangasana
the mother of all poses, she thought. It defied gravity. She was no longer
earth-bound. Legs and feet reached skywards, the delicate flower of her being
offering itself.
From The Garden of Shadow and Delight, Rebecca Hubbard, Cinnamon Press
2014.
Available online from Cinnamon Press at http://www.cinnamonpress.com/product-item/the-garden-of-shadow-and-delight/
or order from your local bookshop or Amazon.Rebecca's website: www.rebeccahubbard.co.uk
