Whooo

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Tonight the barred owls

ask their question upon

the chill of dusk;

one from the tulip poplar grove,

the other at creekside.

“Whooo?”

Is what they want to know.

“Whooo?”

It’s a dangerous inquiry.

A warrior’s initiation right

if you dare seek the answer.

Do you dare?

Do you dare to know

who you truly are?

Coyotes run the crest of the ridge,

yips and howls

formulating the collective voice

of the pack.

Don’t listen to them,

they are tricksters.

This is what I have to say:

If you go searching for the

answer,

you will Die.

And if you don’t go searching

for the answer,

you will die.

If you want to Live,

you must go searching

for the answer.

The moon will light the way in the darkness,

but only so much as to allow

you to take one uncertain step

at a time,

often, backwards.

You’ll find that what the sun illuminates,

is frequently outsized by its

shadow,

and that the shadow has a life of its own.

You are going to have to

befriend it,

as your fellow journeyman.

Be prepared to leave who you

think you are behind

in the quest for

authenticity.

It’s best if you put down the large bundle

of “what no longer serves”

at the trail head.

Do bring your most spectacular heartaches

and your deepest wounds;

these are the trail markers that

will help you stay on course.

And too, have within you

a most

beautiful verse.

You cannot fully understand who you

are until you have courted the

Beloved with such wild abandon,

that you become completely undone.

“Whooo?”

from the top of the tallest pine.

“Whooo?”

from the sycamore at the edge of the meadow.

“Who?”

from the moment you were born,

has been the question

gifted by those who

want you to find your way

Home.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" and "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems

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The Melting Point

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Can you be present long enough

to watch the frost

melt in the hand

of the morning sun?

Solid becomes liquid,

puddles,

and drops one wet rainbow pearl

at a time onto the

mossy tongue of the Earth.

And she laps,

with a twinkle in her eye.

I’m wondering:

Have you ever let anyone

warm you long enough

to know,

with all certainty,

that you’ve found your

melting point?

A sunset might move you.

Maybe a white jasmine flower,

or its scent on the breeze.

Perhaps a wobble-legged foal

standing for the first time

can cause your heart

to risk and fall.

But, have you let another

of your own kind melt you –

to turn your heart

into a thousand shimmering

tears wept in ecstatic gratitude

for the arrival of that moment

in which you finally have no

doubt, you are alive?

I ask this because I See

that so many of us have

forgotten, and been

forgotten.

Brigid’s well needs

water;

the fish can grant

no answers to your

prayers without it.

There is an alchemy that

we must live into this

world if we want

change.

If I can’t melt you,

and you can’t melt me,

what is the point?

The water of life

am I,

and are you,

and we are all

so very thirsty.

So let us do this:

Let us see each Other

as beauteous forces

of Nature.

Let us agree to touch

each Other,

and be vulnerable

to being changed

by the Other’s touch.

Let us yield to the

perpetual flow of

essential love,

nurturing what grows.

Let us commit to making

our own melting point

humanity’s

Great Turning point.

(c) 2012-2016/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" 
http://www.hiraethpress.com

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