So Many

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The frogs are so many
you can’t mistake the pond for emptiness.
Each voice, different, like a moment.
And I stop my hurrying, for awhile.
What fortune it is to awaken each morning!
I go to the ponds, anticipating something
miraculous at the edge of what is solid and
what is not. And, it is there, something,
always there to greet the unknown day,
and I wonder if my coming isn’t its story
of something ordinary but worthy of

words. Maybe, I’m lucky and it's praise.

I’m praising them, all of them, so many
of them, now here calling out for what they want.
Look at that! How they know it and say it.
"Come to me! Come to me!" Have any of us
ever been that bold, truly?
Imagine that in your own body! Really

saying what you want and need.

Surely, I will praise them as they float on the pond

and tell it as it is! This day is worthy of their gusto, 
of their intent to say “Yes!” with bravado to the forces
rushing through them. Life! Sometimes I forget 
about it. About what a chance this is. What a chance
to live, and call out for what you really want, 
for what brings you alive. This is my frog voice.

© 2016-2020/Jamie K. Reaser

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

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Loons on a Maine Lake

Photo: (c) Joel Clement

When I was a young girl we went to a cabin

in Maine that belonged to Grandma Boo.

It sat beside a big lake. I don’t remember

its name, but it was summer and I caught

dragonfly larvae – big darners – that left

their thin-shelled bodies behind on the porch

screens and so I escorted them – blue and

green with wings – into the large world on

the palm of my hand.

They chose the sky for company, but return,

sometimes, alighting in memories.

At dusk, misty twilight, the boys  – teen or

maybe twentyish – next door skinny dipped,

diving in from the lip of their dock, swimming

to a pined island midway. I can still hear the

plunge – one, two.  The rawness fascinated

me, awoke something.

So, I started swimming then too, short strokes

around the edges of our dock and catfish came

to me, like a gift, nibbling my toes, swirling

– silky – between my dog-paddling legs. Catfish.

There was something magical about those fish

and I never once wanted to catch them.

But, this story is actually about loons and how

they cried and vanished, appeared some place

else, and vanished again, and how they did

this for hours.

Even as a little girl I knew that I was

seeing my life:

How I would vanish

and how I must learn

to use my voice before

I do.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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

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Salamanders

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

It isn’t just the salamander that you save,

on a dark, warm, rainy night, crossing the road,

sure to be crushed into something pale and

mushy, maybe with reminiscent spots or

blotches or stripes, no, there is more in your

wet, finger-puckering hand, there is evidence

of ancient times and awe. A voice reminds you

of things you had forgotten. You don’t fully

understand, but you do.

© 2016-2020/Jamie K. Reaser

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

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What Matters

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Somewhere within you there is a love story

longing to find its way into the world.

It wants the tip of your tongue, or

the tip of your pen,

or your finger tips on the keyboard,

or all of these possibilities.

And, the day will come – maybe it is today –

when you have to let it out. When you

have to tell the world, in your own unfamiliar

voice, that a little something once broke your

heart wide open and left you unmercifully 

stranded in the life you are living now, an 

apprentice to a moment when something caught 

your eye, seized your soul, and never let go.

And, everything matters because of it.

How old were you?

Where were you?

What was the form of your betrothed?

Oh, yes, people will stare and adjust themselves

in their chairs, or shift their weight from one

foot to the other if they are standing.

They might offer an uncomfortable silence as 

advice because love has become a four-letter 

word when spoken in front of an audience.

But, don’t stop.

Life depends on this. This is what matters. This 

terrible melancholy of fate that placed a love story 

within you. Leave the voices of fear behind, drifting 

away across escarpments and surface waters.

Claim this life; this life that you can save. Capture 

the memory of what brought you alive. Then. Then. 

In that moment when you suddenly became a human 

fully inhabiting this place that offers us otherness,

release it into the world: your love story.

I’m going to plead with you, maybe a little, actually 

a lot, because this is what matters.

Once upon a time, a toad gave me a reason to live.

And, I’m standing here now because of it.

Because, I came here to tell you a love story.

A story about how falling in love with the 

other-than-human world enables us to live out 

our humanity.

This is what matters. You are listening.

(c) 2016-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Wonderment: New and Selected Poems"

A work in progress

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Choices

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

There are choices that long to be made.

Like, being who you are born to be,

Or, living something resembling a life, all the way through.

You have a soul, don’t you?

You have a limited number of days in this body, don’t you?

What good is it to inhabit this place if you don’t

inhabit your life? I’m asking you to save the world.

© 2016-2020/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Conversations with Mary"

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Second Snow

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

It wasn’t the first snow of

the season, the second, but

it called for at least as much

reverence, for all the attention

one could give to it.

It started in the night,
greeted the morning, and wanted

the day as its own, and took

it in silence and prettiness. The dark
tree skeletons held it up, turning

themselves into many-winged

angels, revealing their true nature

to those who can utter something

more whimsical and deeply honest

than, “It is snowing!”

On days like this, I want to find my

way back to all the snows I’ve seen,

and all the people who were there
too. There are conversations that

never happened under that thick

white blanket, but there was
laughter too, and that unique familiarity

that snow brings, much the way that the
moon brings familiarity, and the darkness,

and the sun and stars, though somehow we humans

still remain lonely. Often. I want to gift questions

about loneliness into the world; how we came

to abandon the good company of magic and

retreated into the world of rationalized noise. But,

not now. Now, I want to let myself be claimed

by the beauty of the snow – the second snow – because

I’ve already found the answer.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion

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The Soft Animal

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The soft animal of my body loves the deep

cup of the nest, but also the edge of the nest,

and the nothingness that is everything on the

other side. I am not built to love one thing or

one way, or limit myself to loving one world.

What is too small must be broken through or

left behind. At times, I’ve needed to do both.

Right now, right now, I just want to sit with

the last moment, the one, the last one, before

I completely let go.

(c) 2016-2020/Jamie K. Reaser 

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

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In the Woods

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I take long walks in the woods, usually up and down mountain

slopes. Usually, alone. Alone in that I’m not in the company

of another human. I’m never alone, really. I’ve known this since

I was a little girl in braids. The forest is such good company. It 
can hold you in ways that people can’t, even those who would 
want to. You can be invisible there, yes, but you can also be 
seen. I think this is important, this being witnessed. I think we 
have forgotten about it, witnessing. It is a testament and a salve. 
It used to be initiation. All the while the birds are singing, we 
miss it. On the branches of the trees:

“I see you. See me.”

Instruction.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion

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