Friday, August 23, 2013

Summer is Surrendering















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I can say it now,

I feel Summer surrendering.

Something is coming for Her,
to take Her.

She’s been waiting for this,
anticipating the moment with
Her throat bared.

I admire Her;

Imagine how it is to be so bountiful,
and yet to yield without hesitation.

When I no longer serve, will I slip away from myself so willingly?

What if saying ‘yes’ means Death
lays bittersweet kisses upon my neck?


© 2013-2017/Jamie K. Reaser
From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World" 
Published by Talking Waters Press

Feel free to share

Thursday, August 8, 2013

A Grey Fox is Dead















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

1.

A head without eyes.
Somewhere a body,
without a head.

Or, maybe it is all in pieces.
Or, devoured.

I look at the still-intact nose, wet,
not from life, but settled dew.
A torn ear encircled by muddied
tufts of fur – red and grey and thick and coarse.
The long, narrow shape of the muzzle yet
covered in a taunt canvass of skin.

A grey fox is dead.

But not long dead.

As morning breaks the tiny undertakers are
just beginning to arrive –
various flies and a bald-faced hornet
saunter in and out of dark, empty sockets.

At some point during the day,
while I am elsewhere doing less important things,
the fat, black, flat-headed carrion beetles
will investigate,
hopeful for adequate carnage.

They will be disappointed,
and leave,

knowing nothing comes to them.

2.

But what interests me now is the soul.

It is not here.

I know these things.

I have spent my entire life in search of my own.

3.

Several years ago, a mother goat died while lying
against my knee caps, her screaming week-old twins
flanking my sides.

We, the three of us, watched her sag as the last in-breath,
realizing it wasn’t going to be needed,
found its way back out.

I thought, now peace.

But then!

Her body suddenly shifted, up and down, a violent
rise and fall measured in scant centimeters.

The twins: silent, steady, in unison,
raised their heads skyward, incrementally, until they were
staring into the heavens above,
necks outstretched, focused,
watching.

I knew, then, what I had seen,

And, I would see it again.

And, I have.

4.

But, I was too late for the fox.

It arose while I slept in the holler below.

I wonder if it looked down and
saw the coyote there.

I wonder what I might see on that day.


© 2013-2018/Jamie K. Reaser
From 'Wonderment: New and Selected Poems" (a work in progress)

Feel free to share

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Morning Rain

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I am watching the mountains make clouds
out of the morning rain.
I am wondering what goes on inside a person
who can’t come up with the word ‘holy’
to describe this world.

I am contemplating savage beauty, and how
it cuts at the heart so that we might feel
into the fine texture of the fleshy body that conveys
us across this uneven ground for a short while.

Here, under these black walnut trees with
their damp-feathered pairs of indigo buntings,
the invisible hand of the Other lays firmly in the
shallow cup
at the base of my back.

This is what it is like to wake up,
and greet another day.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World" 

Feel free to share