Homecoming

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I’m thinking about what happens when you go back
to a place that was once fond of you and see all

those strangers you’ve known for many years,

and how so much will have changed, undoubtedly,

but not the fact that you are still wondering who you

are and how all of this is supposed to fit together,

somehow. There are bridges that convey us between two
points on this Earth, and others that take us

on entirely different journeys. I’ve stood on both.
I want to see the ducks, yes, of course, the ducks of

the ducks that once held my confessions, hear the

yellowed beech leaves crackle beneath my boots,

and try, very hard if I must, to remember

things that I never thought were important. Somewhere

along the winding brick pathways and boxwood-edged

gardens, I’ll stop and say my hellos to some soul or another.

I’ll mean everything I say in the words that follow. A poet

is always earnest. The trouble is though, we never truly

find our way home. And, we know it.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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Leaving

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

On these mornings you can hear the trees themselves
speaking, not the birds that have lifted into currents
and gone on two miraculous wings. There is grief
in their voices, and relief. You know what this feels
like, if you have lived. Leaving: letting go of what no

longer serves the body and soul, often the heart. I can

standby, beside and underneath, and give some sense

of comfort by telling them how beautiful this process

is, how I admire the way they do it with the bold

prospect of witnesses.

I think that relating to the leaf is harder than relating

to the tree, unless you consider that the bird left

the tree for some grand adventure, and then you go on to

realize that we are all leaving each other constantly.

Our old selves, too.

It was a tree, on one of these delicate barren mornings, 
that said to me: 

“I love to watch you change and grow.”

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Plant Songs" (a work in progress)

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Mountain Stream Poem

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I’ve looked, but I cannot find a poem

that Mary Oliver has written about

a rushing mountain stream, the

kind that takes on the tongues

of gods after storms have done

their cleansing and prepared the

land for what is next to come. How

could she not? How could her pen not

have stopped here, so many times

before, wondered, listened, and then

told the stories that the gods want

us to hear, want us to live?

I have written one for her.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion"

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for poetry

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Water Ways

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I took form in this aqueous place, this place of 

tentative buoyancy,  in this life, decades ago, in 

other lives, perhaps, long since, in ways that I 

cannot understand but some part of me

recalls as belonging.

As a child, I meandered in brooks, turning over 

rocks for crayfish and salamanders, salamanders 

that still had gills, indicating that they were still 

young in the way that we are still young.

And, in the summers, I went to the beach, where 

waves taught me how to take hold and how to let go, 

and where I learned that I am ruled by the moon at 

least as much as the sun and other stars.

Have you ever noticed how the moon has chosen 

water to hold her reflection, only water?

I am not a fish, but I have looked into the eyes of fish, 

many. I am not a whale, but I have looked into the eyes 

of whales, a few, and each time I find myself there. Other 

orbs too. Like blue marbles that sparkle iridescent in the 

sunlight and in the gleaming of those who hold them 

between thumb and forefinger.

Have you ever noticed that when you walk up to a fountain 

with pennies in your pocket in a grand city or some out of 

the way little town that your heart beats differently than it 

did the moment before you stepped onto the bricks, or 

cobblestones, or asphalt that led you there?

Rain. A metal roof. That’s enough.

I have had relationships with puddles that are deeper than

with those who have called themselves family, some who

have called themselves friends.

You? When was the last time you jumped in one?

What was the point of this story?

It had something to do with water, how in water you can

drift back and away, and how despite – but I believe because of –

this drifting, this floating, this letting go of some proverbial

shoreline, you can come back from some place remembering

every thing, everything, that is essentially you.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Wonderment: New and Selected Poems" (a work in progress)

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