The Mark

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

At first I wanted to hide them

from the hunters;

These four tawny brown, 

horizontal slashes

with their shreds and peels of

old black birch bark

in which a late-wandering

black bear had written,

“I am here!”

I often keep secrets of the

forest folk,

especially this time of year.

“Shhhhhh!” I wanted to say.

“Shhhhh! These people,

drunk on sorrows

and looking for retaliation for

wounds you didn’t place,

seek to kill you.

These people have forgotten

the proper way

to take medicine.”

But when the rust-gnarled

pickup approached,

thundering down the mountain

slope, throwing twisting red

dust clouds

into the chilled air,

I stepped beside the tree,

and stood, plainly,

at the edge of the road.

You see:

In a split second, I had re-membered

what it is to be human.

You see:

In each one of us

is a deep desire

to leave a mark.

You see:

The one true mark you are

uniquely here to leave

necessitates that you risk

your life in being seen.

The courageous and

the sacred fools

make their mark anyway.

They make their mark anyway

because choosing to be

vulnerable

is our human medicine.

I smiled and waved to these

strangers on the Ridge.

You see:

I wanted to let them know

that they’d been fully seen.

© 2012-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" (www.hiraethpress.com)