Saturday, May 27, 2017

Freyda's Poem




















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


She was walking along the country road,
plodding with sullen eyes that, upon my
arrival, lifted, somewhat, and asked:

“Is this more pain coming?”

And, daringly:

“Could it be hope?”

My open palm offered her the kibble
that I keep on hand, in a jar in the truck,
for just these moments. They are often
enough. She took it into her jutting ribs,
and then went for the pile I put on the
passenger seat. That was my hope.

That’s how our story started.

~

There’s some part of me that understands
the texture of abandonment better than
most things. I could tell you stories, but
I can’t explain it to you. It’s one of those
tangible mysteries that defines us.

We are the legacy of the dispossessed.
~

What makes a being disposable?

I wonder about this when I pick a dog up
on a winding country road, although, sometimes,
it is a cat, or several. And, too, there are the
men with cardboard signs on the street corners,
all having written imploring words with a thick
black sharpie.

Once, it was two young women. We talked.
They had abandoned themselves. They said:

“It is less painful this way.”


~

Rumi wrote to his beloved that:

I want to see you.

Know your voice.

Recognize you when you
first come ‘round the corner.

And, then went on to add:

I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
“more.”

What is the opposite of abandonment?

Is it this?

~

I decided to call her, Freyda.

It means, joy.

~

I think:

If we want to know joy,
we can find our way home.

Anyway, that’s my hope.



~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
From "Truth and Beauty: Poems on the Nature of Our Humanity"

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