Water Shed: Aikido Tanka
Tres Chicas Books, 2005
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Renée Gregorio has a black belt rank in Aikido and a master's degree in creative writing from Antioch University, London. In Water Shed: Aikido Tanka she combines these two passions, presenting a series of poems connected to Aikido.

"When I first entered an Aikido dojo, I felt immense fear--fear of falling, fear of not being able to perform, fear of not being good enough, of looking silly. Now I see how each of those fears were, indeed, manifested, and how it really didn't matter or affect my love of the art"
–from the introduction. Renée Gregorio has made New Mexico her home since 1985.

Excerpt

what I love is the way
he comes at me like sudden
fever, the way I turn
and without question he follows
and without question he drops

I want to go straight in—
if I get the angle right,
wrist above elbow,
tangle of other and self,
you go down so easily

mistake after mistake
you say this is satori
immobilized first
by the most basic pin
all of myself put to the ground

I hold my wooden sword
in its invisible scabbard
poised to take a stand
she nears; my sword sees her first
all that lives in me comes clear.

how does a body
fill space?  As light fills the corners
of an adobe wall, as indigo’s luster
follows from being pounded
I wear its eventual softness

after all of this
I make a pie and catch myself
using effort
as I sift the white flour
into the green bowl

in the heat of swirl
of thrust and shape and dive
heart of encounter
I let him enter my sphere,
close in, where anything can happen

do anything
you want to me.  just do it
with both hands.  be sure
your feet are on the ground
and your heart is a full moon.