Untamed

 

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

What if I stopped agreeing

to this domestication? To the

taming that some young part

of me and, or, some ancestor

acquiesced to for some good

reason? Survival, perhaps.

 

What if I stopped mowing

the grass and let the flowers

arise? I wonder if some day

I could remember the songs

they sing to the bees—

 

the ones I knew as a child

by heart, the ones adults

told me weren’t there.

 

What if I stopped raking

the leaves, let them

lay? Would the box turtle

hide there, and the newt?

 

And, perhaps, just maybe,

the scurrying white-footed

mouse that I adore would

rush to nestle in the pile  

and become something

of the screech owl that I

adore. Who am I to judge

what form love takes?

 

What if I told you about

These wild things that inhabit

untamable landscapes –

the ones around us,

the ones within us. If I just

let my voice go…

 

What if I asked you what

your body remembers of

being animal? How does

it want to move through

uncut grass? How does

it want to move through

a pile of leaves? What does

it want to take up in its talons?

 

What if I released you

from your cage and you,

 

leaping forth into the vastness,

rushing with great force

toward the horizon,

 

suddenly wheeled around, slowed

to a contemplative stride, and,

 

breaking all the rules,

 

set me free?

 

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Feel free to share