True Nature

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Does a bird choose

a branch that

cannot hold it,

or build a nest too

small for its unhatched dreams?

It’s not in its nature.

How often have you given

your heart to people

who cannot tend it,

who do not wish to hold space

for your most intimate silences?

Why is it in our nature?

I’ve seen how a flower can

make an entrance way

perfect for a bee,

How a frog can finish

the call of another.

What is this emptiness

we pursue

in our attempt to know

more than we are?

Tonight I have no answers.

The winter moon is filling herself

up in my window pane

and we behave like strangers

not intent on introductions.

Only the honey in my tea

parts my lips and cajoles

my tongue to speak

with a sweetness

that has yet to ripen

by my will.

Oh,

But it is of no use,

this holding back.

It’s simply in my nature

to love.

What vacancy Rumi knew of

idiot compassion,

I know not either.

Two fools

we are,

courting from bedposts

across the span

of different lifetimes.

But the sentiment is no less

in fortitude

for the absence

of the other.

Branches and flowers

manifest

with no promise

of birds and bees.

And so.

Love.

If it is true.

© 2012-2014/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.)