Grape

When the old campesino’s

sunparched fingers

pluck you,

engorged and readied

by your own sweetness,

how do you feel?

(C) 2005-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

The Beloved's Breath

~ Image origin unknown

If you have suffered long enough
to know your own heart and soul,
a moment will arrive
in which you realize -

The breath that you have been
exchanging with the Universe
is that of your Beloved.

From this moment onward,
insist that the Past
and the Future
bow in utmost respect
of the Present.

(c) 2010-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

See Kayaker

...image from the Patagonia website (July 2009)

When you took to the Carolinian ocean

that summer day,

did you know She was calling you?

The Siren...

She is alluring

and She will not be forsaken.

The you of You she desires to take,

you will surrender.

Her song intends to penetrate

the soul.

It will.

And, at the very moment you

realize you are unabashedly naked

in your Truth,

She has succeeded in her seduction.

The Siren asks:

"Of these salty tears upon which you come to me,

which are your own?

Which have you manifested through Others?

And, which are rightfully yours,

though still outcast by pride and

shame and fear?"

"Be attentive gentle man,"

she urges.

"Within each, shed by Grief or Joy,

is the chemistry for Life support -

the alchemical possibility of

buoyancy upon the waves and tides

of this Water Planet."

That stirring and questioning

within you

about monsters in the

dark depths,

that's Her way of saying:

"You must let yourself

be devoured by the dangerous

beasts in your abyss

before I shall release you

to the shore,

Before you will truly know

your footing on the

shifting sands of Fate."

She has made no mistake

in inviting you to meet her

where the bodies of the worlds

explore each other’s touch.

Here you will feel their union

within your own being.

Here you will remember

the reason you've chosen

this inhabitance.

The gull above and within you

calls out your True Name.

She and I look forward

to the day you declare it,

as a gift,

to the awaiting horizon.

(c) 2009-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

Isla Negra

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The Sea laps

with determined tongue,

longing to take the

Poet’s skeleton toes

into her scorned, throatless

mouth.

Grain by grain

the body

surrenders.

One day,

or night,

he will ride her,

all of his fears of

intimacy

forgotten.

------------------------------

Isla Negra is the coastal resting place of
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

(c)2005-2011/Jamie K. Reaser from The Gypsy's Eye

When They Make Love

Photo: Jamie K. Reaser

The Sun comes each day to

court the Earth,

warming her body with his

radiant heart.

She blushes streams

and ponds and rivers

when he woos.

And when they make love,

mists arise.

(c) 2004-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

from "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life"

The Woodcock's Courtship

Photo: USFWS

“Peent!” “Peent!”

says he recently returned.

First near, then far,

then near again.

“Peent!” “Peent!”

Is his soul fickle?

This audible advance and retreat,

advance and retreat.

No.

In the misty dusk air he circles.

With his feathered body,

he recites the ancient spiral dance known to all mystics,

He announces the auspicious Truth of who he is.

Suddenly the Cosmos calls him skyward

and he casts himself into the heavens.

Up he launches in body and soul,

outward and inward.

Rising.

He twitters in the winged voice of ecstasy,

a cascade of emotions released so emphatically

that they collide upon utterance.

His heart becomes frantic as he circles

a hundred meters arisen

above bog or meadow or powerline cut.

Twittering.

Twittering.

The heart must expand or explode.

The heart must expand or explode.

And then, at climax, he chirps.

He chirps a loud vocal, urgent “Yes!” chirp,

signifying his acceptance of

the holy duties of embodiment.

More vocal chirps amidst twittering.

And more.

His heart has expanded beyond reason.

Oh, take note:

The descent that follows is no defiance

of The Great Spirit.

It is instead acknowledgment.

Acknowledgment of his willingness

to pledge himself in service

Of the Great Mother.

Of Creation.

Of Eternity.

Of the destined union of God and Goddess.

Where he lands,

She awaits,

Ready to play Her part.

Ready, like he, to give the Spirits an intimate

flesh form through which to dance

and merge.

“Peent!” “Peent!”

© 2009-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

----

When woodcocks return from migration in the spring

the males perform an elaborate, aerial courtship dance.

The twittering sound is not a vocalization, but a sound

produced by a special feather in their wings.

The Burning Times

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


- For Elspeth MacEwen [*]


“The flame tuik fast upon her cheik
Tuik fast upon her chin;
Tuik fast upon her faire bodye –
She burn’d like hollins green.” [**]

The old wife of Bogha
born of the yew tree
and bearer of light
was no more.

For a pin in her kipplefoot
and the sweat of mare
at Bluidy Brae.

Womanliness,

Earthiness,

W-holiness,

Mothering,

Trust in a neighbor,

Melting away in
the fright-ignited
rage of humanity.

I re-member it, Elspeth -

The quiet center of Death
and the raucous periphery
of the Dead.

How my heart burst,
outsized
by the longing
held deep in its redness.

Just to glimpse them,
Seeing
what I saw
in the possibility of them,
is all I ever wanted.

But the re-birth
has been my own,
delivered again into the
burning times.

As fire has been bestowed upon
me by Nature and by Man
I promise you thus:

I will extinguish what I must
and welcome the airs of time
to flame the embers of Love
warming in my heart.

(c)2003-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

------
[*]Elspeth MacEwen was one of the last women hung and burned at the stake in Scotland for suspected witchcraft
[**] Traditional ballad, Earl Richard

What if...

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


What if you fell in love with everyone
you met,

and then fell in love with everyone
you have never met,

and never will?

(c) 2003-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

The Coyote

Art: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

At daybreak, as the first flurries fell,

the dog brought me report

of coyote.

“There, on the ridge line!” exclaimed

dog.

“There, on the ridge line! See?” She

insisted and beckoned, repeatedly.

No, I didn’t see him.

But, I felt him.

I remembered the uniqueness of the

full-body prick and tingle

from our first meeting –

two winters ago,

under circumstances of similar snow pack,

similar snow promise.

Naively he padded down the drive toward the cabin,

until, suddenly, our twelve senses mingled -

causing us both pause,

heads raised.

In the instant our eyes met, he drew me near

in a wild, chaotic embrace

of souls.

Taken in that manner, you must gasp.

…and then sigh.

He is memory in an instant.

On, this day,

today,

he returned in form,

longing for more.

How often had he watched me?

I wondered.

There are times, when doing farm chores,

that I feel my every move measured.

Does coyote know my routines, know my stride and gate?

If so, he knows me better than most.

But, I am not to be flattered.

“No, I spoke to him.”

“No.”

I have made my offerings to bird,

and deer,

and even mouse.

Fatten your predator hide on these.

What you ask of me is too much.

The lives here are not mine to give.

None desires to separate body from soul

this day or this night.

Not for you.

Not for me.

And so, ridge running coyote,

know this -

despite chill and the threat of tree-bending winds,

dog and I will remain awake to your presence.

It is our duty.

It is what we shepherds do.

We are the edge walkers between the

wild and the domestic.

The flurries still fall.

© 2010-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

The Crayfish

Art: (c) Jamie K. Reaser



Grow

Out of the hardness,
tough parts,
that which keeps you small,

The boundary between
the beating heart and
the rhythm of all
else.

Shed your skin,
the exoskeleton,
the structure that
defined you
to the world.

Expose the softness.
Be raw and tender.

Between one you
and the next is
vulnerability,
yes,
and the ego’s lament.

To keep growing is
to risk being
on the way to everything
or nothing at all.

There are choices -
a rock
or a heron’s feet.

Choices,
the outcome of
which is Destiny.


(c)2003-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

Birthing

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser





Your Mother is calling you
back to Her womb.

She wishes you to come
suckle,
stripped down to your
Naked Truth.

Crying
nameless
tears into
Her arms.

Being a mysterious
being at
Her breast -

Like a salamander
under a rock
in a humid southern
landscape.

Darkness and solitude
are the thick
shadows of your patience.

Does any child ever know
into what form it will be born
or at what age?

Humility,

It is the rhythm of your rattle.

Find your way back to Her
through your smallness,
helplessly
breathing that first ecstatic breath
into all that you are and do.

Your belly button
re-members the way,
anchors
the cords of Destiny.

I declare you beautiful,
wide-eyed and innocent
and new
in every moment.

You are a man.

This is
your
adulthood.

Welcome.

(c)2003-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

Quietude

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

 
In the breath of the raging storm
I heard a conversation
about quietude.

I thought it ironic,

until my heart reminded me -

the I of the storm is
an inner calm.


(c) 2006-2012/Jamie K. Reaser 
Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out." (www.hiraethpress.com)

Awaken the Dead

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser








Have you ever held someone’s
hand as they took their
last breath,

Known the settling coldness of the
Corpus corporum,

Closed vacant eyes for viewing?

Death has so many faces:

Tragedy, Blessing,
Deserving,
and Time.

You,

The Living Dead,

Which one is looking
back at you from
mirror and mask?

Headstones of greed,
coffins of the self-centered heart
buried under fears
and trivialities.

At what price have you
sold your soul and that
of your neighbor?

At what price have you
sold the souls of the generations
that would have come?

The obese ego enslaves
and starves the body,
whipping its hide with
self criticism and doubt.

You have taken your own
life.

But, this zombie poison
has an antidote
unmatched by plant,
pufferfish, or toad.

I call the people of the
world to

A wake.

2003-2011/Jamie K. Reaser