Elisabet Ney Visits Me at Hot Yoga Asheville, by Lee Stockdale

Lady Macbeth, by Elisabet Ney (USA. b. Germany) 1905

Elisabet Ney Visits Me at Hot Yoga Asheville
 
Halfway through the hour with Britt,
a popular instructor with an eclectic playlist,
 
I’m visited by Elisabet Ney whose sculptures 
I viewed this summer in Austin, Texas. I ask 
 
what she’s doing here. Because you can see me. 
And because she never sculpted yoga postures, 
 
Elisabet wants us to work together: I’ll transmit to her
visions of students, she’ll sculpt them and this 
 
will bring us both joy. I send her down dog, 
water wheel, bridge pose, cobra,
 
warrior one, warrior two, reverse side angle, mountain, 
pyramid, pigeon, child’s pose, happy baby, 
 
and my favourite the beautiful bird of paradise.
She renders each in Italian marble,
 
smooth and white in the soft yoga light,
the room begins filling with dozens of figures,
 
I’m amazed by how quickly she works,
but most amazed by their life-like magnificence,
 
as an interesting saxophone flows through what is now 
an annex to Elisabet’s Austin museum.
 
Lee Stockdale

Lee Stockdale has won The United Kingdom National Poetry Prize and other prizes. His debut poetry collection, Gorilla, was brought out by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2022. He lives in the Western North Carolina Mountains.