Saturday, April 30, 2016

The Flowers




















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

We only lived in that house for a year
and I was only six, but I remember
things. Like, Mom planted a row of
flowers along the walkway to the
front door. They were red and
yellow and orange and shaped like
rooster combs. “Cock’s combs,” a
neighbor said. They fascinated me,
how a flower could look like part
of a chicken. I watched them for
endless minutes, like I expected
something to happen and didn’t
dare miss it. I knew something of
magic then. Perhaps, I simply
expected they’d become chickens,
scratching about the yard for seed
and small insects. But, maybe it
was something even more
miraculous than that. Maybe, it
was some bigger knowing that had
possession over me. I’d put some
in a pot on the stoop of my first
house. For no particular reason, I
thought. And, there would come  
the day when I’d be standing in the
Amazon and meet a field full of the
ancestors of Mom’s flowers, as tall
as me, and I’d feel an odd sense
of family and want to tell someone
about it, but there was no one to tell.
Then, a day would arrive when I’d
have my very own chickens and
while watching them strut, cluck,
and scratch, I’d remember being
a little girl watching flowers, and
realize that I was still watching them.

We shouldn’t underestimate children.
They become something else.



© 2016-2019/Jamie K. Reaser
From "Plant Songs" (a work in progress)

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Saturday, April 23, 2016

What We Want From A Flower
















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


Tell me nothing,
and I won’t believe
you. Within you
there is longing,
something

that you want from
a flower, maybe it
isn’t a fancy thing,
but I’ll bet it is
profound. Life

changing, maybe.
Have you thought
about this? I hadn’t
until today. I’m

thinking about
it now, how I want,
no, expect, flowers
to make things
better. They do. Isn’t  

this interesting? I wonder
what a flower wants,
no, expects, from
me.



~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Published in  "Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion"

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Saturday, April 16, 2016

The Way A Flower Opens
















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


Have you ever been kissed the way
a flower opens? Those with short lives
must know something of pleasure,
mustn’t they? And beauty, whether
it be their own or they just choose
to find it everywhere. I think that
flowers must kiss bees, and butterflies,
and, yes, the heavenly air as much as
they dare. I won’t say an unkind thing
about that.



~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Published in "Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion"

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Saturday, April 9, 2016

Standing There




















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


I happened to be standing there.
Initially, it didn’t seem like a particularly
special moment or a special place, although
there is something special about everything
and everyone, it’s just that some people
keep what is most special secret. I know.
But, there I was, making one of those
silent prayers that you make in the woods
because it’s your cathedral and there it came,
wide wings low across the trail and whoosh
to the toe of my boot, big, dark saucer-eyes
looking up, straight into mine, locked for an
eternity-second. There was blood on the
tip of its beak. Interesting, I thought. Without
words, it said, “I claim you.” And, that was that.
Some prayer was answered. I’m not sure
which one. Maybe, it was all of them.



~ Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion"
Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for poetry

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