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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