The Vow

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

This that we do with our lives

is a vow,

a promise,

a service if we go at it

humbly enough.

When its golden eyes and gills

become parched in the biting air

and its gaze knows nothing

more than what a hungry

bear can offer of itself,

it is done.

There is nothing more to do.

It is this.

There is no other reason for

any of us to struggle our way

into this world as we do.

All our lives we are called:

“Come!”

“Come!”

We hear.

“This way!”

We call it longing because

we have forgotten

that we speak the usual

language of wild things.

Yet, up river we go.

We must.

We must yield.

Yes.

This we do with our lives

is a vow,

an agreement made in secret

with something truly holy,

a sacrament.

Yes.

I’ll tell you how I know:

I watched a sockeye salmon die.

And, for the first time,

I really understood

my life.

© 2013-2017/Jamie K. Reaser

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

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