Saturday, March 30, 2013

A Rabbit in the Porch Light




















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

There in the newly mown grass
in the shadow cast by freshly lit porch light,
something, something simple has put itself there as
a reminder that we are not alone.
Big brown eyes.
It is cordial, perhaps,
beautiful and non-threatening,
chewing on clover and listening for whatever
it is the arriving night wants to say;
things that we cannot dare imagine because we have
forgotten the value of trying to hear and
be heard – though our survival used to depend
on it – well, actually, it still does –
and so here I am in awe of little things,
simple little things, that haven’t forgotten
themselves, nor given up hope for our souls.
What do I do when I realize the rabbit feasting
at dusk understands things that I fear
well enough to expose himself in spite of them?
Certainly, I could learn, couldn’t I?
And there he goes, hopping,
moving deeper into the darkness
where life or death awaits.
He’s listening for it,
I know,
but he doesn’t stop his vigil with himself.
So maybe I could soften,
maybe I could,
and move a little further away from the light.

Vulnerability:
flight, fight, or freeze.

Haven’t we been here long enough to find
a better way?

I could turn the porch light off,
and step into the warm summer air,
and undress,
and listen with the pricked hairs of my body
to whatever is out there,

whatever wants to come close.

The switch is greyed by finger prints.
The door knob is round and cold.
The hinges, creak.

Certainly,

I must
take the risk
to open.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Published in "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" 

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Friday, March 29, 2013

Gifting You Roses

Image origin unknown

I have twelve in my hand, yellow and tight.
On long stems, green and wildly thorned.
I have captured the sun
and cast the warm glow of its light on memories
and truths and tomorrows.
Gratitude might be the answer to all of our questions.
I am grateful.
Do you know this day?
Do you know it, truly?
We cannot repeat miracles.  What arrives,
arrives only once.
Do you see these petals?
Each is a never again, and I’m thankful for the opportunity
to trace the silken thread of their veins.
How can we not but look upon each as a miracle?
Yes, gratitude must be the answer to all our questions.
Today, I have put my nose against
the window pane aside your front door.
I am carrying twelve yellow roses
because.
Yes,

because.

© 2013-2019/Jamie K. Reaser
From "Truth and Beauty" (a work in progress)

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Thursday, March 28, 2013

Fawn

Ima
Photo: Jamie K. Reaser

Is any human heart
naïve to the texture of
abandonment?

Here I am snugged in
tall grasses and sunspots,

Still but for my newly-boned rib cage
and the short-bodied flowers
that play flower games in exhalations.

I could be here all day;
What joy there is in bird song,
and the tremendous leap of
shiny
green
grasshoppers,
and soil – how it smells.

I am of this place
and its daily-recounted secrets.

I ask you:

"Please don’t save me."
I am busily laying in this meadow,

saving you.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Published in "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" 

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Monday, March 25, 2013

Song for the Reindeer















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser
For CB and all those who re-member the songs

I owe you my life.

No man can become a man
without otherness.

You are other.
And, you are me.

We are of the same
hoof and bone.

When I consume your body,
you are the knife and the spoon
and the tongue of the ancestors.

How otherwise starved and naked I would be.

Cradle and sled,

You’ve born me
into this world
and across the miles
that no one else cared witness.

My stride is a learned migration
into my self.

Only here can I know flight.

I may be the breath,
But you are the sound of my soul:

This soft rhythm of the taiga.
These branches snapping in the wind.
The keepers drumming at the threshold
of the world
in which we are true brothers.

Blood lines. Life lines.

There is only one world.

And, this music.

Yes, this music ~

I’ve come to understand
is a Man’s initiation.

How could I be without you?

How could I ever be without you?


© 2013-2014/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" (www.hiraethpress.com) 

(Feel free to share. Poetry is meant to move.)

Melting


Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

You can hear it now:

the melting.

It is the composition being
performed by droplets
in metal downspouts
and off the single gutter that
should have been cleaned out
in a more timely manner.

The puddles are growing,
wider and deeper,
and I think also thicker
as the snow releases
things it caught and froze –

Mostly plant debris.

Is debris an appropriate term?

It seems judgmental in some way.

And the mountain streams coarse
more loudly than before the storm.

Has it occurred to you that streams need
otherness in order to carry on a good
conversation?

Rocks and logs and shallows and banks
and submergent vegetation
work particularly well.

I love it when a stream uses me.

What else has the capacity to melt?

I’ll leave it to you to make your own list.

All I ask is that you do this:

Put
your
own
name
on
it.

© 2013/Jamie K. Reaser
From "Snow Days: Reflections by Candlelight" (a work in progress)