The Feast

Image: origin unknown

I am here, wondering about the

worth of my days

to your stew pot and virulence.

I knew every cadence of the river.

Every color of the flowing sky.

The meandering of the heavens.

And below – smells and textures –

silt and loam and plant.

You could have come

and asked me of these things.

You would have learned:

This is the intimacy that makes a man.

The wisdom of millennia has taught me

that the body must become a testament to listening;

Life is conversation.

Living is ceremony.

So, I ask you:

What is this emptiness you seek to feed?

In your gut, you do know.

Hollowness.

So,

Look now

upon the empty,

gutless shell of a being

in your hand.

That was me.

That is you.

I can assure you, this is not the way

to satiate hungry ghosts.

We sit together at the same table,

you and I,

and the haunting pain of separation.

We partake of the same destiny.

“Come. Follow me,” invites the river.

“Come. Open to me,” invites the sky.

“Come. Pray with me,” invites the heavens.

“Come. Let’s touch each other,” invites all the others.

Do you hear it?

Everything.

Everything,

is inviting you into relationship.

You are here on the bank of the river,

We are all here basking on the bank of the river,

to learn

to feast

upon

the heart.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" 

For Masood Arshad Makhdoom, with gratitude for all he does on behalf of the river turtles of Pakistan