Evidence of Life Unseen

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser, spotted salamander egg masses

A white-tailed buck visited pond-edge,

the light of Jupiter and new moon

dancing upon his back like giddy nymphs

at the first ball of spring.

It was the willow sapling who told me

of his visit, the story emerging into the lines

of my palm as I ran my hand over the long,

rough, tawny wounds spanning two feet

of its narrow spine:

A rubbing post for velvet.

Time and temperature and penetrating rains

have beckoned forth spotted salamanders.

Thick as a thumb, jet black, and each marked

with a constellation like none-other,

they have crawled from their subterranean haunts

into what we call the world.

I know of this from the still-chilled waters

of the vernal pool, a receptive womb

in which opaque globular egg masses float

amongst the decaying legs of

last season’s cattails:

Freshwater pearls encasing the bounty.

Someone trained in the arts of deep allurement,

put out a line and a bunch of foolish

catfish took the bait. He filleted them and, 
for reasons I cannot fathom, drove the whiskered 
heads high into the mountains where he pitched 
them aside in a quiet holler,

their eyes still plump with surprise.

Turkey vultures with bad breath tattled on him,

launching their heavy bodies from

leafy ground to barren tree when

disturbed by the words:

“What the heck?!”

A woman sat on a rock with a purring marmalade cat,

content, watching the breeze play finger games

in his mistress’ long silvery hair.

She did nothing more apparent

than write a poem.

You can see for yourself:

Everywhere there are stories being told

to eyes willing to listen.

(c) 2012-2020/Jamie K. Reaser

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

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Sacraments

Image: Sharp-shinned hawk by John James Audubon

How does last night's fall snow
feel about the morning sun's radiant touch?

Is there a deep yearning to be melted,

or is there a great fear of death?

I whisper:

"They can be one, the same."

The sharp-shinned hawk throws himself,

like Cupid's hell-bent arrow,

head on into the bough-damp cedars.

He has faith in a universal memory

that has never occupied him personally.

"There will be nourishment at the core of

this dark and tangled thicket."

And he is correct,

Emerging with brown, flopped-necked sparrow

in his blood-warmed talons.

He makes no apology for taking a life

to secure his own,

But he does pull each of the sparrow's feathers

and sends them fluttering free into the blue of sky

as his particular way

of making an offering to the Holy.

And is this what it's all about? I wonder:

Every act of life, a sacrament.

'

(c) 2012-2014/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" and "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems"  (www.hiraethpress.com) 

(Feel free to share. Poetry is meant to move.)

In the Body of a Woman

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I’ve been searching for the

source of your fear -

The wound that you

have forgotten,

but never healed.

The wound that has not

forgotten you.

How can any human being

choose to desecrate the

holy vessel from which they

emerged?

You were conceived

in the body of a woman.

Your father’s best swimming sperm

found your mother’s luminous egg,

and they joined in union.

You are nature’s miracle.

In time, your fingers and toes

took their form in the body

of a woman.

You wiggled them delightfully.

What wonderment.

And sucked your tiny thumb.

What comfort.

You became unmistakably human

in the womb of a woman.

I’m curious:

What about that disgusts you?

Please, tell me. I want to know.

In the body of a woman.

You’ve burned us,

beat us,

stoned us,

owned us,

molested and raped us –

body and soul.

Witch.

Whore.

Chattel.

Cunt.

Bitch.

Mother.

Daughter.

Sister.

Aunt.

Niece.

Do my breasts actively offend you?

Does my vagina scream profanities?

Do you think my loins are the Devil’s hiding place?

Please, help me. I want to understand.

In the body of a woman.

This, my body, is nourishment.

This, my body, is love.

This, my body, is creation.

Why does this, my body, terrify you so?

Please, sit with me awhile. I want to embody compassion.

In the body of a woman.

Wounds are not healed through bloodshed.

Wounds are not healed through oppression.

Wounds are not healed through loss of dignity or shaming.

Wounds are not healed in ink.

Oh why are you compelled to try to do so?

Please, take my hand. I want to help you find another way.

In the body of a woman.

I’ve been searching for the

source of your fear -

The wound that you

have forgotten,

but never healed.

The wound that has not

forgotten you.

Please, listen for just a moment.

Please, I want you to hear just this:

If I could take your body into my open arms,

and heal all your wounds,

I would.

In the body of a woman.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"
Published by Talking Waters Press

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In the Dark of Night

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

In the dark of night,

between the Sun's abandonment

and the Moon's possession

there can be great temptation

to run. 

Don't.

Sit. Be still.

Invite the Beloved to haunt

every aspect of

your vulnerable being.

What's the sense of being truly alive

if you won't commit to being ravished

by the exquisite tenderness

of the unseen?

The breeze picks up and takes your skin

into the pucker of its lips.

This is merely foreplay.

(c) 2011-2016/Jamie K. Reaser

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

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Invitation to the Sacred Masculine

Photo: Jamie K. Reaser

I know how long you have

been waiting to be received.

I have heard the desperate cries

from the little-boy-of-you –

The one who wants to be held

in ways he’s never

truly been held.

I’ve felt the pain projected

from the adolescent-of-you –

The one who believes that

you have to test love by

being unkind to the ones

who say they love you.

I’ve seen the fear,

and sometimes the rage,

in the young-man-of-you –

The one you self-sent to war,

hoping that embattlement

would make you a Hero.

This poem…

This poem,

is an invitation that I’m writing

to the initiated-adult-of-you –

The one who understands that

vulnerability and courage

can reside in the same body,

simultaneously,

And that these are the gateways

to intimate communion

with the Sacred Other.

The one who knows he’s tended,

always and forever,

by the Great Mother,

And who has come to his knees

in humble gratitude and

reciprocal offering for the

nourishing milk of life that he

has received daily from Her supple teats.

The one who has learned

the difference between the

ego’s encampment of the Hero

and the hero’s journey of the Soul,

And who has chosen to no

longer believe in enemies,

but who actively fosters extended families

of Sisters and Brothers

among the two-leggeds, four-leggeds,

feathered, finned, and furred,

and who embraces each being

from the empowering surrender-stance

of the heart-warrior.

Beloved,

I’m wondering if you can hear

these words in the

Wail of the full moon’s light

or the song of the sky-breaching whale,

or the warble of the dawn-painting thrush,

or the woman-of-you who you

may still be denying knowing,

or the one whose voice you’ve heard

a thousand times,

but never really listened to,

or the one who you have yet to believe in

because you’re still not fully

convinced that the Sacred Feminine

can show up in human form,

or that you are worthy of her affections.

My love,

I’m talking about

these words,

the ones that say with

open and iridescent sincerity:

“I am longing to receive you.”

Should I repeat them?

These words:

“I am longing to receive you.”

You see,

I know of the great aching

that stretches across this lush,

yet lamenting world of holy desire.

Can’t you hear the evocative voices in the

swale of the moist wind and the

surge of the wave as it rises

and reaches out for something

to take hold of?

She wants you.

In the swaying of long meadow grasses,

In the rippling of the mountain stream

around an imperfect mossy stone,

In the releasing of perfume from every

splayed blossom,

she is speaking to you.

She wants you.

You See:

This poem…

This poem,

is an invitation that I have written

to the Sacred Masculine-of-you –

It’s an invitation to fully show up.

It’s an invitation to be fully received.

It’s an invitation to manifest,

in co-creative union,

embodied,

within me.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Available in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"
Published by Talking Waters Press

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