Caterpillars

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

All summer long they are out there chewing

on something that is unable to shoo away their

multitude of tiny, suckered feet.

Maybe it calls out to the birds,

“Come! Perch here! Eat these!”

And, some birds do, definitely,

and toads,

and mantises,

wasps with effective yet questionable tactics, those

ladybird beetles that you naively think are

so lovely and kind,

but there are still more

scissoring away at the edges, sculpting, stripping,

all feeling fully entitled to gluttony;

there will be no acknowledgement of sin, oh no,

no repenting, no statements of any kind that

end with

Amen.

I love them.

Every single one is perfect in its beingness,

and I needn’t struggle with the ethics of it all.

***

I listened to the evening news.

How much longer until the butterflies emerge?

I’m not sure that I have the patience to wait.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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Acorns

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Within an acorn resides an entire tree.

Imagine! How clever the gods; they perform

this act and better it, enlisting scads of forgetful squirrels

to do their autumn planting. This world is so ordinarily

miraculous. I do hope that you have noticed.

© 2014-2017/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Plant Songs" (a work in progress)

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On Living a Life

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

“Be without answers at the end of every day.

Start each morning with questions.

Do what you want in the in-between,

but be sure that it gets you muddy,

and wet, and perhaps a bruise just below

your right knee cap. The briars will require

that you mend that hem. If I were you, I’d go

about naming something that you’ve never

before seen. Then you will be able to call it

and it will come to you and you can have

delightful conversations.

Be sure to introduce yourself first, if you

know your own name,

And, get curious about it. Wonder. To do a good

job, this is a must. And, be polite. Always say

thank you; how this world became so lacking

in gratitude I just do not know. Such simple

gestures could save us all.

On with it, then. You have this life to live,

And, I haven’t got all day to sit

here on your window screen.”

“What’s that?

Oh, you are most welcome.”

This happened.

©2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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This Drab-Brown Field Cricket

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

How many times must a soul vanish into the dark abyss

before it can be known by the body that has been conveying

it across holy ground?

Maybe, at some point, I’ll be able

to tell you.

Any heart that has dared be present in this world knows despair.

Despair is what frees us from our attachments to illusion,

what takes us back to that place where the three worlds touch.

Despair whispers, “Now, go forward. Follow this path.”

But, you have to love yourself enough

to be able to hear these words.

I’ve been watching how the ravens fly in tandem

over the hazy blue ridgelines,

and how mushrooms emerge after rains

with little clots of red clay

settled on their heads; evidence that their soft bodies

broke through something hard. And, I’ve also noticed how

the little native bees with metallic green bodies share

in my love of bold flowers.

It is so easy to find the sacred; simply

stop believing

in the mythos of the profane.

This drab-brown field cricket, ambling her short life

through a maze of dead leaves and dying grasses,

is the next being I shall choose to worship.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World" 

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