The Wind and the Young Heart-Warrior

Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service

For 364 days the disciplined student

of martial arts –

a young heart-warrior –

had walked a long ways

down the coast,

at the edge of the tide’s finger,

to where the storm had long ago

stripped the walking-board planks from

the pier pilings.

Once there,

he’d climb, effortlessly, to the top of a piling,

a piling that had been swallowed,

all but six feet,

by time and shifting sands.

Once there,

he’d root his bare right foot on concentric rings

that had yet to let go of the tale

of the piling’s life as a tree,

and he’d lift his left leg into the air,

and he’d extend both his arms

and also begin to lift them high

and he’d envision passersby

and, most importantly, his Teacher

being so very impressed with his

undeniable perfection of Crane position.

But,

As luck would have it –

every day,

every time he knew himself to be

a fraction of a second from achieving

his most-sought-after achievement,

a large, emphatic gust of wind would

charge out from the sea oat whistling dunes

and blow him, so ruthlessly and unelegantly,

off the piling and into a humble heap

on the hard, repetition-compressed sands below.

And he’d get up,

brush off,

and go home.

On the 365^th day,

when all had proceeded as it had

on all the days before,

the young, crumpled heart-warrior

looked up at the sky with rage

and screamed out to his Teacher,

The Wind:

“Why do you hate me so?

I am your most dedicated student and a good boy!”

And The Wind,

smiling and chuckling, said:

“The lesson of this past year has not

been about achieving perfection

on a post,

but about learning to let

your Soul fly.”

© 2010-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" (www.hiraethpress.com)

Doe, A Deer

Image: origin unknown

For Frank for the inspiration...

Doe, a deer,

a female deer

standing in ironic be-wild-er-ment

amidst a still-screaming clear cut.

Have you seen

the big yellow monster

that destroyed her home?

Blades that have never known

the ethics of a Ninja.

She now has PTSD

and is too numb

to grieve,

to dash,

to join the stumps in their collective shrieks

of amputation.

My eyes catch a glimpse

of a single flower that made it through –

Podophyllum peltatum –

Mayapple.

Eternal hope.

I’ll ask you again:

“Have you seen

the big yellow monster

that destroyed her home?”

It dwells within you,

you know.

The Destroyer –

That part of you that takes more

than you need.

That takes everything you need.

Look! She’s moving,

shifting her head so that

her big brown watery eyes meet your eyes.

She can See that you are human,

but she just doesn’t get it.

And neither do you –

And neither do I –

despite the long practiced walk and talk.

How is it that even those of us

who have awakened to the consequences of

our actions still largely

partake in hypocrisy?

It’s all about the fuel that goes into

the Big Yellow Monster

of You

and Me:

Insecurity,

Fear,

Loneliness…

These things drive the harvest rates

of that which is Beautiful –

both within us

and outside us.

So, it is time All

that we call for an alternative energy source:

Compassion,

Love,

Unity…

We start not by monkey-wrenching

The Destroyer,

but by bringing The Destroyer into

ecstatic relationship with The Creator.

I’ll say it again:

“We start not by monkey-wrenching

The Destroyer,

but by bringing The Destroyer into

ecstatic relationship with The Creator.”

Her udder is becoming painful

as it swells,

and there will be no relief.

The twins were dismembered

and disemboweled

as they did what ancestral memory

told them to do –

place your lovely white spots

in the glitter of leaf-sieved sunlight

and be still.

Two Mothers will mourn

and someone else

will refer to these and other casualties

simply as “negative externalities”

of Progress.

Look within.

Go within.

Redefine Progress

for yourSelf and

for our species

before you fuel your

next outward step.

© 2010/Jamie K. Reaser

Stop It Now

Image: found at http://cecillethestoryteller.wordpress.com



All over this world tonight

there are Souls saying

“No!”

Some are in little bodies,

some in big bodies,

some in long-wearied elderly form.

They are saying “No”

to sticks and stones

and words

that do hurt.

And no one is listening.

Shoulders fall forward,

eye shine fades,

bruises form

on the inside and out.

Hope departs in fragments.

Witnesses

cross to the opposite side of the street,

leave the room,

pour a glass,

turn the music up,

change the subject,

join in.

How much more evolutionary process

is needed before the human species

becomes a species humane

to its own membership?

Don’t shift your eyes away,

refrain from going deaf and dumb.

The future created in complacency

is lived by us all.

See the atrocities there before you.

Listen to the silent and primal screams.

Step up and say “No!” in whatever loving way

you can,

louder than they can,

they are so very tired.

That is someone’s

Daughter/Son,

Sister/Brother,

Mother/Father,

Grandparent.

That is a mirror you are looking into.

That was a person,

a village,

a People.

Have you taken the time to cry out in agony

for the generations of cowardice

that has taken generations

from us?

Flame and rope and gas,

gun and blanket.

How is it that a simple,

two-letter word

has so eluded the masses?

“No!”

It needs to stop.

It has to stop.

“Stop it now!”

© 2010-2017/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

www.hiraethpress.com

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The In-Between

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Another Day

rests her weary head

over the ridge.

I wonder if I should

envy her confident

withdrawal.

I have tendency

to linger in

the in-between.

A delicately intimate relationship

with the magical bardos of

dawn and dusk

hallmarks my life.

Often, I transition

in good company:

On an Andean cliff edge

the mystic and I,

surrounded by gracious children,

would share in pregnant silence

during the hour of power -

allegiant –

until one of us

spotted the first star

and giggled uproariously.

Celebratory dawns:

The watery melodings of

oropendolas and currawongs,

Bumble bees stretching and yawning

as they awaken on coneflower beds,

The sand surface break through of

loggerhead hatchlings

furiously in pursuit of surf,

Satiated bats last morsel flight,

Zealous cicadas first declaration.

Blessed dusks:

A painter’s most passionate wandering pallet,

Vociferous owls and frogs the world over,

And oh the whip-poor-will,

Magical hikes up mountains and at lakeside

until moonrise begs our full attention,

Does retrieving dappled fawns

in dense wildflower meadow,

Emerald-green katydids at window pane

preparing to play their wings

with the passion of short-season urgency.

So…

So, to my questioning,

I think not.

I think, perhaps, that I shall vow

to grow old while padding along

edges and frolicking

with uncertainty.

Those who have not yet

called me crazy

might find reason to do so.

That’s alight.

For, in fact,

it dawned on me long ago:

making stepping stones of the in-between

is the only way

to grow.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in  Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out 

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Opportunity's Crossroads

Image: National Park Service

At midnight

a train whistle blew

in a distant land

signaling its approach

to a lonely crossroads.

Sleeping cattle

slept.

I stirred

and began

wondering about crossings.

Criss cross,

to be cross,

crossed,

cross stitch,

crossed wires in the interpretation

of suffering as the cross’ sacred symbology.

For a time

I believed myself distracted

by the tracks of our Story

that I’ve walked

in your chestnut eyes.

Later,

I realized

that I hadn’t been

dis-tracked at all.

The hobo poets

had it right.

Only children and fools

wave as Opportunity

chugs by.

And, I have heard

The Whistle.

© 2010/Jamie K. Reaser

Bird at the Birth of the Sun

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

If I could
I'd be an ebony-plumed bird

at the bedside
of the world,

At the birth of
every sun,
I'd warble or grok
until the soul in adolescent form
beneath womb-masquerading covers
awakened.

Alas,
I am not a bird.

At dawn,
the crowing of adamant roosters
traverses my window pane.

And, I cry.

I cry tears
that a bird
cannot cry.

I am human and my song,
a loquacious heart song,
is a lament for the
collective soul of our world.

(c) 2010-2017/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

Hiraeth Press; www.hiraethpress

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