They came up the mountain to escape weight, and I carried each one of them the whole way.
Now they lie on colored mats in a hall with open sides, and I hold them all: the woman folded so her forehead rests on her shins, the man balanced on one foot with his hands pressed together above his head, the teacher moving between them, barefoot, unhurried. I hold the mats to the floor.
I hold the floor to the mountain. I hold the singing bowl in its little dish and the tea cooling in forty cups on the low table by the door. When they breathe out and sink lower, that is me. When they fold, I am doing the folding.
The teacher keeps telling them to release what they are carrying, to let it go, to set the burden down. I have listened closely to this for years. I have measured them coming and going, before the week and after, and they weigh the same. Whatever they carry does not register on me.
And yet I can see it: the way a shoulder rounds, the way a jaw stays clenched even in the resting pose, the slow bend that has nothing to do with any load I can find. They arrive already leaning under something I cannot hold for them, and they leave leaning a little less, and I do not know how, because I never touched it.
So I hold the part I can reach. The bones, the blood, the warm relaxing bodies at the end of the last session, when a whole room finally lets go at once and trusts the floor completely, the way they trusted the delivery room, the way they will trust the last bed.
I have got them. I always have.
I always will.