In This Way

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The pudgy voles must be

nestled deeper now,

the meadow grasses damp

with the weeping of

half-hearted snow flurries,

And the fox and owl

tucked in by morning light,

stomachs robust and satiated

or burning with a hunger

strong enough to feed fear

into the hours ahead.

This is how I awaken.

Life on earth is a written language

that is read through the

living of it.

What is most tempting of

this day is everything that

I don’t know about its

unfolding.

My Beloved is like this,

fully present yet always

out of reach of anything

intent on the possession

of answers that would shorten

the moment’s extended hand.

To be betrothed to

the Great Mystery

is to say “yes” to everything

that cannot be planned:

The next breath,

The next lover,

Death,

And how each will

take you in their arms,

with, or without,

mercy.

The vole knows only the

last pinch of the talon,

and the tongue-pressing

swallow of the fox,

but even in this,

there is time enough to

breathe out these words,

“So that was my life.

I am so very grateful.”

And in passing this way,

so many times,

you place your own

punctuation marks

in the Great Story,

Stops,

starts,

and the kind of exclamations

that can only come

from embodied feeling.

In this way,

You live and die,

in the way all

exhausted

lovers do.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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

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