Shavasana. A poem by Marthese Fenech

Shavasana

And how can the light in me

Honour the light in you

When my light burns so dim

Because I can’t hold

Downward dog for fifteen seconds

Without thinking about the

Fifteen children

Who have lost limbs and lives to rockets

In the time it takes me to get the pose

Right

Or when I stand in Vrksasana and stretch my arms

Like branches to the sky

I do not see the stars

Just a constellation of scars

And I think of all the olive trees

Uprooted like so many lives

And child’s pose

How do I rest in child’s pose

When

When

When

New phrases have been born to describe

A wounded child with no surviving family

And tin foil serves as an incubator

How do I breathe a deep Ujjayi breath

When the generator has just run out and the

Oxygen stops and that final gasp comes

And

Shavasana.

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Marthese Fenech is the number one bestselling author of epic historical novels set in sixteenth-century Malta and Turkey. She has also written the pilot episode of a television series based on her books.

Research has taken her to the ancient streets her characters roamed, the fortresses they defended, the seas they sailed, and the dungeons they escaped.

Obstinate curiosity has led her to sixty-five countries across six continents. She does her best plot-weaving while hiking mountain trails, wandering local markets, paddle boarding cliff-sheltered bays, and sitting at home with her Siberian husky curled at her feet.

The youngest of five, Marthese was born in Toronto to Maltese parents. At twelve, she moved to Malta for six months and was enrolled in an all-girls private school run by nuns; she lasted three days before getting kicked out for talking too much. Back in Toronto, she started a business editing and selling bootleg heavy metal concerts. She later worked with special needs children and adults, witnessing small miracles daily.

Mar has a Master’s degree in Education and teaches high school English. She speaks fluent Maltese and French and knows how to ask where the bathroom is in Spanish and Italian. She took up archery and wound up accidentally becoming a licensed coach. A former kickboxing instructor, she snowboards, surfs, scuba-dives, climbs, skydives, throws axes, and practices yoga—which may sometimes include goats or puppies. She lives north of Toronto with her brilliant, mathematically-inclined husband and brilliant, musically-inclined dog, known to lead family howl sessions on occasion.

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