Japa Walking

Ananda Vrindavan is my friend, our community president here in the Metro DC area, an educator, and a poet. She's Irish, and started her working life as a Montessori teacher. She later taught at the Vrindavan Gurukula for twenty years, fifteen years of which she was also the principal there. I become enchanted and pulled to a deeper place when I read her poems. I invite you to journey with us! ~Rukmini Walker

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~by Ananda Vrindavan

I take my beads for a walk

Moving my feet, my fingers

And my voice reciting the mantras

Quietly as I circle the park

As I circle a round

I pass some joggers

I am jogging too, my rounds

That is, four on this walk

I hope not too fast that I

Don’t listen well, don’t

Connect with Krishna.

There is a man with

His head down

I should be that

Concentrated

Only momentarily distracted

By the beauty of nature

The sound of the early morning birds

The soft warm beginning day sun

There a car cruises by

I have to watch for cruising

How easy it is to

Cruise the universe

With the mantra in the background

There is a dog on a leash

Looking at me as I pass by

I need to keep my mind on a leash methinks

And an elderly couple walking together

We need sanga on this spiritual path

Even though I chant alone,

I need to be  with others

We hold each other up, keep each other

Going, and stretch each other deeper.

I japa walk back home

In this life and to the one

In the spiritual world.