Beetles

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Perhaps they are here to teach us humility,

And that is what so many people
find disturbing about their six legs

And hard casing, and the way they crawl

and fly – Sometimes under the yellowy porch lights

at night. Sometimes in the thick garden. What they read

with antennae, I know, our world-lonely bodies

could never know. This I grasp at as an ache.

They need not adorn themselves. I suspect

the thought of doing so would never cross their

little minds. Why bother? They are the living jewels

sculpted by the very same jeweler we deny,

that we will not give ourselves over to.

We can’t count them. We can’t name them.  Not all of them.

And in this is evidence of our lack of desire for

true intimacy with the living.

We wish to remain strangers from the multitudes.

You cannot convince me otherwise; everywhere you can see

how the backs are turned.

What is this great fear of finding out who we

are through relationship with another?

I think that I must admit this:

I have a love for the stars that course the heavens,

And at least an equal love for the beetles of this earthly plane.

If I can do but one thing and one thing only with

the time I have remaining,

it is to bow my head

and open my heart

to this –

an inordinate fondness for life.

© 2013/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" (to be published by Hiraeth Press in June 2013; www.hiraethpress.com)

The Vittles of Death

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The broad-winged hawk

raised from the rocky creek bed

with a time-limited garter snake

in her talons.

I knew the bird by the

horizontal white tail barring

and the rapid flap of wing

as she rose toward the emerging canopy veil.

I knew the snake by the

vertical yellow stripes

running the length of body to tail.

They gleamed in the sunlight

stored up by the poplar leaves

for cloudy days

such as this.

What of him was not twisted

and entwined in a mutual

death grip with scaly hawk feet

streamed downward –

though in mid air,

gravity still laying a claim

saying,

“You will return to me.”

Perhaps all of us knew gravity

wasn’t expecting to see that snake

again in the same configuration

of embodiment.

Most of us were okay with it,

under the circumstances.

So bird and snake got me thinking

about how we living beings

must feed our inner beloved

on the vittles of Death.

Love notes take many forms:

Here my Beloved are the cords of attachment

to beliefs proven too small and inflexible,

to things that constrict and clutter,

and to all those who can only embrace us

in pathologies of pain.

Here too I lay down all of the possessions

that ego has acquired through the depletion

of Self and Other.

There are many.

Let me nourish you my Dearest,

tending cellular breath and memory,

on the flesh of animal and plant.

Though I’d like to promise you that every

being came to our lips by choice,

I don’t know this to be true.

Our gratitude needs be far greater than

Grandmother’s mourning.

I kept walking,

knowing somewhere beyond my sight

the extended arm of a large tree on mountain slope

was hosting hawk and serpent

at the shared breakfast table of Gain and Loss.

But before this story was completely over,

I came upon another common garter snake -

this one warming belly in the middle of a winding gravel road.

His tongue flicked in and out,

tasting, sensing.

I said,

“Hello Love,”

and gently moved him out of harm’s way.

© 2011-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life." (www.hiraethpress.com)

Home is Here

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

In the black walnuts, newly leafing, warblers flit

and swish about, testing the age of my ear

and long-term memory. American redstart, northern parula,

yellow-throated. Oh, and there’s a blue-grey

gnatchatcher scit-scatting. Wiggle, left, right, left, right.
I wonder: What is this place to them? Do they have a name for it?

Home? Not home?

On that day when they all decide to come northward,

does one of them suddenly chip, “Let’s go home!” Or, is that 
something they sing in sonnet form before heading South?

If only I was more fluent in little bird languages.

After considerable pondering,

I decide these might be migratory bodhisattvas:

beings who have learned to live exquisitely in the moment.

Home is here. Home is there. It’s a nest, a branch,

a piece of sky – with or without clouds. Maybe

it’s the edge of a stream when taking a drink or a bath, or

a ceramic vessel that some kind soul placed in their garden

because they love brightly colored things that fly and give

sweet verse.

Maybe I am over thinking this.

Cerulean. Worm-eating. Black-throated green.

Naughty cowbird.

Here. In this tree. For a moment.

Maybe I could be present too.

Totally.

Home.

© 2013/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" (to be released by Hiraeth Press in June 2013)

The Message

Photo: (c) The Wildlife Center of Virginia

‘Buddy’s Poem’

Can we be here without a purpose?

I don’t think we can. Earth is too

wise to waste herself on us.

A wound can come and set us

upon a path; the big ones do.

Stepping stone: Learn humility from scars.

Stepping stone: Apprentice to imperfection.

Stepping stone: Claim the beauty of your soul.

Yes, I do believe in traveling this way.

Once I met a high-spirited eagle with

a crooked yellow beak who had been

grounded for life

by the infectious bite of a tiny mosquito.

You’d think that humiliating

for such a bird,

enraging.

But no,

this bird tossed a stone in front of me,

arched his head back

and screamed into the heavens,

“Compassion!”

And, I knew, absolutely knew,

in that moment

he meant

for everything.

© 2013/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" (to be published Hiraeth Press in June 2013; www.hiraethpress.com)

This poem is dedicated to "Buddy" the Bald Eagle in honor of his 5th Hatch-day. You can read Buddy's story here: http://wildlifecenter.org/critter-corner/education-animals/all-about-buddy