Insignificance

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I have decided to revel

in my insignificance.

I am nothing more than

anything else:

star dust,

a whisper in sacred space,

the glint in a buck’s eye

during spring rut,

a mountain turned to

sand after millennia

of dying the warrior’s

death,

an ant carrying cut leaf bits

back to its family

of thousands,

the dry, outgrown skin of

a black rat snake hanging

loosely in the arc of long,

wind-blown grasses.

This is all.

And in this, I am free.

My once-raucous mind has no more need

of that which does not serve

the soul’s manifestation

of itself.

When the loyal soldier is honorably

relieved of his duties

and the long-wailing children

are nurtured,

a quietude sets in.

I walk among you having

put down my weapons

of charitlessness.

See me as nothing more than

your heart,

your prayers,

your revelation of beauty.

For, this is all I am.

I am this insignificant.

I am no better than anything

else in this exquisite

world that I wholeheartedly

share with you.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" 

Feel free to share

The Humming

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I’m learning that there are bonds

of holy union

that cannot be undone

by mere mortals.

Swans know of them,

and dogs,

and children under the age of five.

And every other being on this planet.

When did we stop regarding

every breath as sacred,

and every eye we look into

and every hand that brushes against

ours?

I saw the filaments dancing today,

the ones that criss-cross lifetimes

and geographies.

They were humming a tune that I

have heard before in the natal waters.

It has only one note.

That’s all it needs.

When you remember it,

you remember me.

When I remember it,

I remember you.

It’s really quite amazing that we have lost

our way…

Really, it is.

The hummingbird has been trying to remind

us of our origin

while we take pity on it for the lack

of a song.

Oh my Beloved:

How I have forsaken you

in the austerity of these hurried times.

Were it not for the touch of sunlight

on a cold winter’s day,

I might have forgotten the endlessness

of your reach.

Always the bindings that unite us are there,

across them flowing an abundance of grace

and urging.

Longing is the form of that urging.

It is no vapid pain,

but a life blood of sentiment

through which the Holy

feeds us on dreams.

It is the umbilicus of love,

and when it is cut,

I’ve come to learn,

something dies.

In the story of every fallen god

and every unlived life

there is this truth,

and a deafening silence.

© 2012-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" 

Feel free to share

Departing Storms

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I have opened all of my

doors to the oncoming

winter storm.

The wind howls lullabies

and the branches of the naked

sycamore flail

as it dances,

entranced to music

that I have long ago forgotten

how to drum up.

Dark grey clouds come

to me across the western ridge,

running southward

and then East.

My eyes follow their

intent to be somewhere

soon.

Should this be my prayer today?

This cleansing of my

inner landscape with your

mood of intolerance to

settled things?

Too much of me has settled, perhaps.

Settled for circumstances

smaller than I deserve,

for conveniences,

for momentary supplications

that rendered the next moment

without advent of utility

to the soul.

It’s interesting, really,

how much this life of mine

seems to need of your

surging body.

Somewhere along the way

I think we must have taken

each other as tempestuous

lovers

and I’ve failed to remember

it until now.

So maybe this will be my

prayer today:

That you open to receive me

in your throttling arms

as I take to the mountain crest,

offering to catch your tears

in my mouth and call out

the salty om that will most certainly

bring us together

in a familiar grip of longing.

But, no, I think not.

Today, today I want to

pray as the raven prays,

catapulting myself on the drama

manifest of your thermals

and gliding off to meet with

turquoise blue.

Today my prayer is for the

courage to leave

all the storms that no longer

serve me as stunned

wisps memorizing the

curvature of my back

as I depart.

The ancient bones of me have

rested long enough to have

learned the cadence of

tranquility.

This is the earth song that I

want to recall when the

winds gust within.

© 2012-2014/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" (www.hiraethpress.com)

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