People in Winter

Photo: (c) Barbara Melton

Foxes don’t try to hide what it takes

to live. They see no reason for shame,

and so do their deeds in the bright of

moonlight, sometimes announcing them,

like the vixen did in the meadow two

nights after she took my golden rooster

by the neck.

In winter, there are two thieves:

The fox and the season trying

to steal the fox.

One of them succeeds.

You can’t blame it.

Why do people look upon the angel

in the snow and say they are that?

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for poetry

Many thanks to Barbara Melton for use of the photo

Feel free to share

When Men Sell Their Souls

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

“When men sell their souls,

where do the souls go?”

It’s an important question,

if we want to get them back.

And, we should, you know.

There are good reasons to do it.

~

I have a deep fondness for hollow

trees, they welcome so much to live

within them: a screech owl whom I

have known personally and, on my

farm, there is an old black locust filled

with thick honeycomb and sweet,

golden honey and so many bees that

the tree hums and vibrates under a

many-lined palm laid gently upon the

vertical-running bark. We keep each 

other secret.

But, hollow people, they don’t let

the lovely things in.

~

I find myself spending more and more

time with trees.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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

Feel free to share

Those Who Bow Their Heads

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I too want to keep the company of those

who bow their heads. What is our

purpose if it is not attentiveness

and gratitude? Let us have allegiances

with that which breaks us open and

that which makes us whole.

Have you noticed how the light finds

you, but always gives you over to the

darkness so that you can see what is

really there to see? Listen to the voices

around you, I have begged, how they tell

you about humanity in gestures. Your

humanity, theirs, mine, ours. How much

of it we have neglected out of neglect of

this generous world. I want to comfort

this place with a million utterances of,

“Thank you!”

Let me find other words too, always, and

walk with reciprocity in my step. Always.

If we were having dinner together tonight,

I’d say something simple like:

“There is food on the plate.

Lives have made it so.”

That’s plenty of reason, certainly you

agree, to bow our heads in attentiveness

and in gratitude.

“Thank you!”

“Thank you!”

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for poetry

Feel fee to share

The Fire Song

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I have walked among the sage, brushing

it with my palms and wafting into my nostrils

the scent that lingers in the cup of my hands.

You don’t forget this. Not the circumstances,

not the place. Explain this to me.

I’ve never seen a sage grouse dance. I’ve

heard tell that it’s like watching a feathered

dervish making his way between the worlds.

A spiral up. A spiral down. I believe that’s possible.

When I was a little girl, I’d sing a nursery rhyme

to ladybugs. Do you know it?

“Ladybug, ladybug fly away home. Your

house is on fire…”

People thought I did it because I like ladybugs,

and I do. But that wasn’t it.

Have you stopped to wonder why certain plants

will come all the way across the world to ask

you what you love?

That was it.

That moment when a ladybug must stop

everything she is doing to save her home,

to save her children.

Will she?

“Ladybug, ladybug.”

Do you care enough to go home?

If you listen closely, you can hear those weeds

out there singing the same song, the fire crackling.

“The sage?” They ask.

“The sage-grouse?” They ask.

So often, I’ve found answers to adult conversations

in the memories of my childhood.

“What do you care enough about to 
stop everything for?”

“The sage?” They ask.

“The sage-grouse?” They ask.

There have been a lot of fires recently.

“The sage?” They ask.

“The sage-grouse?” They ask.

                              

Large areas going up in smoke.

How many of us remember that this is our home?

How many of us will remember that this is our home?

I love the sagebrush and the sage-grouse. I want 
to dwell on the scent of sage again.  I want to see 
that dance. I want to be close enough for dust 
disturbed by bird feet to settle on my boots and jeans.

I hear the song of the fire.

I want to go home.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

For the participants in the Western Invasive Weed Summit

Boise, Idaho, November 2015

Feel free to share

Sufis Whirling

Photo: origin unknown

I like to think about Sufis whirling, wondering

what they see, or if they see at all. Maybe,

there is something beyond seeing.

I think, perhaps, it is knowing. You,

understand, don’t you?

Poets must have one foot in knowing and

the other in what is not knowable. That’s our dance.

© 2015-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

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

Feel free to share

The Angels in My Head

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I have angels in my head.

They teach me to be a better human

than I would be if left to this rather

awkward task alone.

They say things like:

Stop!

Look!

Listen!

Here, now!

They give me a chance. They nudge me

into re-membering that there is a difference

between living and existing. Things exist.

I want to do better than that.

Sometimes they quarrel.

Quarreling angels make for interesting

company. Sometimes, there is just so

much good, so much loveliness, so much

wonderment to be experienced that

these angels feel the need to fight

for my attention.

I think this is what it means to be blessed.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Conversations with Mary"

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for poetry

Feel free to share