The Winter Wren

Image: winter wren by John James Audubon

How can a little brown bird flit

across your path,

yet remain perched as a precious haunt

in your psyche for days?

The winter wren is a secret

come out from the thick greenbrier

to look you in the eye

and let you know only

that it has suddenly revealed

itself in the brisk, dancing

air.

What secret?

This bird took no measure

to say.

How often aspects of us

show up without announcement

or explanation,

flitting into our awareness

with the hope that we will

See.

We are more mystery to

ourselves than we know.

The sky can’t decide

on blue or gray,

and the clouds are directionally

fickle

as I ponder the winter wren

hop-skipping through

my dense woodland.

“What is it you want of me?”

I ask.

“It’s a secret,”

is the only reply.

And this is what I concluded:

I can love what I do not know.

Countless bodies are breathing 

in windswept thickets

around me, and without me 

knowing of them,

or them of me,

we are entwined and my heart holds

inexplicable space for them.

What is yet unrevealed of me, too,

is lovable.

© 2012-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

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