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" 

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