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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