The Indigo Bunting

Photo: from Thundafunda

Listen now

to the perfumed voice of

the indigo bunting’s

“sweet, sweetie, sweet.”

How can all of Summer

fit itself into so

tiny a bird?

Here now is Dusk

to silence

the gent.

Oh, spare your tears

my Inner Beloved –

Do not forlorn.

At the first kiss of Dawn

his love notes

will find us.

Why else would we Awaken?

(c) 2011-2013/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" (www.hiraethpress.com)

Tadpoles in Tire Rut

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Five hundred eighty seven

American toad tadpoles,

Anaxyrus americanus,

black as pupils,

swim the shallows

of a tire rut.

Not a single limb bud

promises an impending hop.

The Sun knows this.

I imagine many would scoff

at the foolishness

of the two pudgy, wart-covered

night lovers who swooned

and spawned here

under a naked Moon.

Me?

No. Not me.

I kneel, a student.

Only true masters

have the capacity to

put such faith

in the ephemeral.

© 2011-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

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

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Nectar

Photo: (C) Jamie K. Reaser, Japanese honeysuckle

Sixty minutes awake in

the meadow

reveals the Nature of things

someday pronounced discoveries

by those who have been

sleeping all the while.

When was the last time you

relished a sip of honeysuckle –

Really let the clear beads of nectar

languish on your taste buds

instructionally?

How many blues do you

know of the sky that has been

your companion

since birth?

The male cardinal, the wine berries,

and the box turtle’s eye

are cadmium red,

alizarin crimson,

and lust.

How glorious to know a sedge

from a grass

and to fervently listen

to their stories

for sixty minutes

As the goats forage.

© 2011-2014/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.)

Irrational Optimism

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser, fledgling eastern phoebe

I am a nestling eastern phoebe

perched upon the edge

of the moss-lined mud cup

that is the only home I’ve ever known.

Here, under the roof eves

of the tattered house,

sixteen days have passed

since my egg-tooth

sliced open a world of possibility.

I have grown large in my dreaming

and this womb-bowl too small –

Feted on juicy vain insects,

my plump pin-feathered siblings

and I hunger for

more.

The sky is large and come-hither blue.

I know nothing of the experience

of flight,

but it consumes my definition

of self in entirety.

The distance between here

and the nearest tree is great.

The distance between here

and the rock-hard ground is great.

There are four cats below.

Three of them have been calculating.

I am on the edge.

I am the embodiment of

irrational optimism.

*

And I am flying.

© 2011-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

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

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Sisterhood

Photo: origin unknown

Not by birth, but by vow.

We stand in solidarity,

hands interwoven into

peace-filled fists of unity.

This is Sisterhood.

When we cry together,

when we laugh together,

birth miracles together…

This is Sisterhood.

Mooning synchronously

and bleeding for each other

from hearts ravaged by

understanding…

This is Sisterhood.

Each time we face the mirror,

gazing lovingly into the tired eyes

of every other woman

in the world,

this is most definitely Sisterhood.

Sisterhood is what brought

us here –

to this time,

in this place.

We have found each other now,

because we need each other now.

We vowed –

simply

To show up.

© 2011-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

From"Re-Union: Coming Home to Each Other" (a work in progress)

Lady Toad

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Lady toad,

the color of Virginia red clay,

Buddha-squats in my driveway silently

inviting the sun-spent rain

coalescing in ever greater

stream flows

to rush under her pinking pelvic patch

and quench her newly emerged thirst.

I adore and admire her –

perfectly suited to expose herself

to these passionate elements

for long nights of meditative solitude

intermingled with moonlit love making

amidst equisetum stalks at pond edge.

Did my soul long to inhabit her form

but incarnate in the consolation prize?

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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

Storm Clouds

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I’ve been watching these big black clouds

roll in and roll by.

“Storms coming,” they say.

The common gray treefrogs concur,

trilling their liquid welcome

to the opulent gods of thunder and lightening.

A tall pine might singe and smolder,

but in the largest puddle there will be amplexus

and whatever ecstasy frogs know.

Ancient ceremonies linger all around us

keeping the Earth turning on her axis.

The choreography takes you

into consideration.

Why don’t you dance?

*

Yesterday the cold spring rains pouring

off the front lip

of Thor’s double-headed hammer

caught me on the crest

of Lydia Mountain.

We walked miles together,

each asking questions of the other:

“Can I trust your touch against my skin?”

"Yes," I replied.

© 2011-2017/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved 
in Everyday Life; www.hiraethpress.com

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A Tiny Plot of Land

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

There is a tiny plot of land I tend:

miniature daffodils,

bearded iris,

spiderwort

at the base of bluebird box

on post,

frequented by generations

of Carolina chickadees.

Thick layers of shredded cedar mulch

invite hemlocks to headstart.

It pains me to pull them.

Relocation attempts have thus far failed –

their roots run deep.

I make apologies by the season.

Sometimes I venture a few feet

forward

or backward

or to the sides

and tend tiny plots of mown grass –

pick up sticks,

brush off leaves,

offer a neighborly “hello.”

But I always return

to my named plot –

sit for spell and ponder

or just sit.

Still.

Today, while planting a single-bloomed iris,

white,

vein-trimmed in deep royal purple…

Today it occurred to me that

no matter where I live

this two by three spread

will be the one plot of land that

I nurture the longest in this lifetime,

and with the most gratitude.

The blue ceramic urn below

no doubt

cracked open long ago.

It’s been sixteen years.

Happy Mother’s Day.

© 2011-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

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