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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