The Oriole by the River

Image: origin unknown

The oriole chortling by the river

is so much more than simply a bird

glimpsed in the bush.

It is a never-again moment

witnessed,

and shared.

How can I not but feel split open?

I am an innocent,

but one who has willfully surrendered

my heart to Life’s intent to grow

each one of us into something

larger than the body can contain.

In saying - “Yes” - to whatever this is,

I have invited my own undoing.

Anything that has emerged from an

egg,

a seed,

a cocoon,

or a mother’s womb

knows the awe-full process of

breaking from confinement.

What pain.

What ecstasy.

Destiny lies in the way we view

the world when we first open our eyes.

We are so small in the context

of this big and bold and expansive

universe of possibility…

Question 1:

Will you succumb to fear,

crawling back into homespun captivity?

Or...

Question 2:

Will you choose to fully emerge,

embracing vulnerability as your savior?

I can’t help but wonder what that bird

thought when it first peered,

naked,

beyond the rim of its edgy nest cup.

Reflecting upon a moment

by a river,

I have such gratitude for its wings.

© 2012/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Re-Union: Coming Home to Each Other" (a work in progress)

At the Heart of the Meadow

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Don’t stop on the edge of the meadow.

You cannot take the pulse of the

wildflowers from there.

Intimacy is at the core of all things.

You must get thickly into it.

You must lay your fears down

at the threshold

if you hope to release the small

of your back into the cradle

of whatever it is you love.

And look up at the sky.

Or let gravity pull you into another.

I have known what a day is like

without ecstasy,

what a night is like when the

loneliness you keep in empty company

fills you so full of void that

you can’t hear

the stars singing.

Such moments were not intended

for anything that breathes.

If the long grasses sliver the length

of your legs, say:

“I am wounded,”

but do not make an event of it.

Instead, look back at what

you have

trampled upon

and offer apologies

in the form of lavish praise.

It is the beauty that you see

there that will turn

your scars

into skin so sensitive

that it longs for

touch from the living.

I once saw a doe come to

nurse her newborn fawn

in the white-blossomed

rose thickets.

She knew to place that which

was most precious

at the heart of the meadow,

and to nurture it there.

Why would she have done

anything less

if she could do this?

And I can do it too.

When the indigo bunting sings,

“Sweet-sweet-sweetie-sweet,”

I wonder if you’ll meet me there.

© 2012/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Re-Union: Coming Home to Each Other" (a work in progress)

Our Home

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The memory of experiences I’ve never had

has been passing before my eyes -

unlived lives wanting to be laid

to rest.

It’s not sermons they are looking for,

but cascading tears -

The kind of tears brave enough

to tell stories in empty rooms.

When the rain falls hard and long

against the window pane,

the multitude of coalescing droplets

can confound the ability see what

is on the other side.

Only upon reflection is

there faith.

I look to the wildflowers

smartly gracing the

curvaceous vase

on the old scratched dresser.

I wonder: Why do I keep one

element out,

and escort another in?

It’s the purring cat that reminds

me that being touched

is an act of relationship.

This, our home, must not be

a fortress,

or a cage.

There is a reason the

skin tingles.

© 2012/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Re-Union: Coming Home to Each Other" (a work in progress)

The African Elephant

Photo: (c) Arne Witt/African elephant, Amboseli National Park

There is no recourse but to pause

and gasp, besieged by wonderment,

when you realize this love-challenged world

of ours, still,

still,

is holding space for such

raw and aged magnificence.

I couldn’t have dreamed him,

not even if I were the most gifted

of dreamers –

Dreams are humble enough to know

when they are best left in

in a pillow’s shallow cup.

He’s what makes reality

worth visiting.

And, in this moment,

sigh,

if Amboseli offered to write

my name in her salty dust,

I might be inclined to stay

for awhile…

Barefoot,

A woman remembering

what it really means

to be wild.

A maiden in the bush.

I’ve met elders before;

Their palms are so worn from

story telling with their hands

that their lifelines take up residence

in their eyes.

This one too.

And on his hide,

the intersecting

valleys and ridges

of a thousand parched wrinkles

collect in drapes and folds

at belly and ankle.

In concentric circles they cascade down

the length of his long, thick trunk

to its sensitive tip -

where he explores and reasons

unreasonable things.

These places that generations

of red-billed oxpeckers

have used as perches and swing sets,

gravity employs to record time,

and wisdom earned.

He understands what a day is for.

Perhaps this savannah

wouldn’t be so dry

if we all understood.

Sometimes the vervets climb

into the acacias and tell

his story.

He collects their gossip in the

flap of his ears and lets it

bounce a bit.

Sometimes it comes closer to

the truth that way.

None of them were there

to see.

For them, the horizon lines

have always been a place

of emptiness.

He re-members herds so large

the earth was a bed of rolling,

hoof-thundering clouds.

This is what gave the Maasai their

sense of rhythm and inspired

them to take joyous leaps of faith.

This was before the free ones

were called “game.”

Before there was a price tag on

his tusks.

Before he wondered if his last

breath would be seized by bullets

and saw blades.

Certainly,

This would disappoint

the dung beetles,

he muses.

Still, being loyal to ghosts

is a wearisome task

for the yet-living.

How do I convince an elephant

that we can learn?

Might he be inspired to hope?

If I asked,

Could he tell me where we went wrong?

© 2012/Jamie K. Reaser

Coming Home to Each Other

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The blossoms are departing

the white dogwood boughs

as the black vultures

hop, hop the grassy bank,

jockeying for position to take

a bite of the doe

who left her body beside Route 33.

In the midst of it all, a sulfur butterfly

lifts himself into the sun-warmed gusts

on untested wings, saying:

“I had no idea!”

A mystic once told me that we

are all inhabiting different

worlds of simultaneous experience.

I’m pretty sure he was right.

And, I think these inner landscapes

we steward must be rich and varied terrain,

though no less bold and fragile,

no less abundant and endangered,

no less invadable and war torn,

no less sacred and celebrated

than the ground we walk on.

It’s from here, after all, that we source

our way of walking.

I’m getting used to being lost

in these places –

the inner and the outer,

yours and mine.

I’ll readily admit to being mapless.

I have no intention of knowing you completely,

And I’m too great a conundrum to

myself to explain.

I’m convinced this is a good thing:

Mystery is what keeps us longing,

and longing is the power

that calls petals to journey,

vultures to disembark the sky,

and butterflies to risk everything

for a moment of surprise.

How wonderful this dilemma:

We are always in the process of

coming home to each other.

© 2012/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Re-Union: Coming Home to Each Other" (a work in progress)

The Garden Iris

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

In the florescence of the garden iris,

I see your green eyes

when bright and when wearied

by days grown frail in their

failure to keep on making promises

about tomorrow.

You just rest now.

Let what has already bloomed be enough.

Someone will remark on it next spring,

and perhaps the one thereafter.

Love has a way of rising when tears

water the soft mossy earth.

I’ll plant memories for you with my own

body while answering the question,

“What is it the Soul wants to live into?”

Because I learned from you

what a life can be.

© 2012/Jamie K. Reaser

For Wilhelmina 'Billie' Reaser (March 3, 1943 to April 4, 1995)