This Great Burning

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

There is something within you

that you have been

relentlessly containing

for fear that its emergence

will cause you to

ignite

like a martyred monk

on an empty sidewalk.

Here ~

swallow this match.

Each one of us must

learn how to burn.

To burn away:

Limiting beliefs

fears

anything that does not Serve.

To burn up:

Living our dreams

living our passions

for the gods’ sake, Living.

To burn,

As if we are the only holy book

that matters and every page

is inscribed with the still-wet ink

of Love.

I know that many of you,

those of you who courageously

converse through the ample language

of mystic bards,

remember The Burning Times.

That’s not what I speak of now.

No.

We will never set the world aglow

by burning each other in bonfires

of hate or rage or self-loathing.

Truth be told ~

In those fires,

it is ice that claims the

most souls.

Yes.

In this Great Burning,

the one I speak of now ~

In this Great Burning,

the fire must

spontaneously combust

from within.

You,

you the one reading this poem,

You are meant to enlighten.

~Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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

Behind the Woodshed

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I met my inner man

behind the woodshed

when the chores

had been completed

for the day.

He gave me a bouquet of

redbud, willow, and pungent

Calycanthus.

We danced under the waltzing

of moonlit bats intent on

satiating themselves

with life.

Oh Sweet Mother Dawn,

How can my lips

be so untouched

and yet so exhausted?

© 2011-2012/Jamie K. Reaser

from "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" (to be published by Hiraeth Press in August 2012)

Answers for Mary

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser, mute swan

Yes!

I saw it, its bill like the compass needle

which is wholly committed to truth.

I knew of its pertinence the very moment

my heart took flight.

You see, beauty isn’t for figuring.

Beauty exists only for the embodiment of beauty ~

a holy union of form and essence

to be lived into the world like

the sacred contract between mated swans.

And oh yes,

with this,

I’ve changed my life.

© 2011-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

Response to questions asked by Mary Oliver in her poem, The Swan.

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

The Fiddlehead Song

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The voice rose like musty fragrance,

from leaf-littered substrate to my ear.

“Do you love me?”

I stooped low.

“Do you love me?”

inquired harlequin green fern

in fiddlehead curl and tuck.

“Of course I do,”

I replied.

“Then, please sing me a song.”

I balked.

Here the delicate melodings of thrushes

disarm choirs of angels

hand-selected by the gods.

I could offer nothing better than an

off-pitched Corvid grok.

On a good day.

“I can gift you some water,

or how about my favorite ring?”

I was hopeful.

“Sing me a song.”

My hopes were dashed.

So I sat there at trailside for 36 straight hours,

nervously relocating last Autumn’s acorns among piles.

How to honor, not insult?

I mused and agonized

as sunlight and moonlight

took turns wandering through the nascent woods.

And then a cool breeze stirred

the understory and me.

“It’s all about intent,”

came the re-minder from my

exasperated mystic pal

on a higher mountain far away.

“Intento!”

Indeed.

I sighed and giggled at

my human folly.

And then I claimed

who I am.

Fire ignited deep within my belly cauldron,

causing feisty cleansing steams

to rise within

and purify.

Dews burning off at dawn

serve the forest similarly,

perhaps.

And so, with great intent, I sang:

“I love you…”

to the harlequin fiddlehead,

alas,

my voice every bit as

unabashedly wretched as I’d feared.

Alas.

But before I could offer up an apology

worthy of such outlandish disgrace,

the Osmundia fern replied:

“That’s the most beautiful

thing I’ve ever heard,”

and unfurled.

(c) 2011-2014/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life." (www.hiraethpress.com)

What is Joy to the Snapping Turtle?

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

What is joy to the snapping turtle?

His beaky jowl open wide

does not invite a kiss.

His algae-slimed carapace

is rough around the edges,

sculpted by millennia of quarrels

with the world.

It does not invoke cuddle, or caress.

Dare you seek his intimate company,

he will hiss, puff, and rise.

Insist, and be met by a strike

of serpentine appearance and precision.

He has no patience for your curiosity,

No want for admiration or allegiance.

Coo and he will think you ridiculous.

When on land,

he has no retreat from your love

and it scares him.

But oh give him the substrate of

pond bottom muck

and all that he has learned

of passion comes alive.

Like a monk who knows

a specific mist-enshrouded mountain

as the extension

of his soul,

the snapping turtle glides

along a thoroughfare of beaver channels

and snacks on lizard's tail plants

as a matter of meditation

and transpersonal expression.

Watch this ancient master long enough

and you will discover what joy is.

Joy is surrendering your entire being

to the element to which you belong.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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


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Dense Mists

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The great blue heron

tickles her breast

on springtime buds

as she

lifts and plunges

her laborious wings

over a ridgetop canopy

wet with dense mists

at dusk.

I do believe that Nature

knows something

of foreplay.

(c) 2011/Jamie K. Reaser
from "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life"

Soul Lines

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

How do you know that I am not

your great grandmother

or that one day I will not be

your grandson?

Maybe I have been a camel

and you, a chimpanzee.

If I am ever a bird,

I pray that I am gifted

a far better voice.

They speak of the Seventh Generation –

Our need to protect this land,

these waters,

the air we breath

for them –

the unborn.

What if we are to be the Seventh Generation

come again,

re-birthed?

Am I stealing in this life from

the body that will

carry me in the next?

Two-legged?

Four-legged?

Finned?

I think it would be best if we

were all spiders

at least once.

Perhaps that’s what it takes

to understand

how interconnected,

delicate,

and miraculous

the web.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World

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I Wish for Only This

Art by Marie Ellerider (1791 - 1863)

The world doesn’t need to know

that I have lived,

Or how many times

I have died.

I do not desire my name

to be spoken of

or repeated in form.

Whatever the elements make

of me is fine.

I wish for only this:

That those I have loved

find themselves,

some day,

crumpled over

in the soil,

raining Her with tears

of ecstatic bliss,

because my soft gaze

softened their hearts.

(c) 2011-2017/Jamie K. Reaser
from "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" 
Published by Hiraeth Press