In the Balance

Art: Mark Collins
http://markcollinsfineart.com/

This Autumn afternoon

the young hawk

took himself into the air

arising from some secret in the old orchard

and banking toward the blue-hued mountains

to station in one of the far-reaching red oaks

that the farmer let live for want of

cattle-shade. Black angus. Not very

imaginative. The hawk: I thought of poetry,

of Gary Snyder up in a fire

tower scribing masterpieces

on simplicity and balance.

Then, as if it was meant to demonstrate how

quickly a lovely thought can shapeshift into some

harsh reality, the squirrel arrived and that, was

that: not well-practiced but honed by necessity,

it cut across the distance. Woosh!

I said to myself: “Look at the way he loves. Look

at the way he serves Heaven. Look how he

learns who he is.” There was nothing to disdain.

Nothing to grieve. There was an impaled

squirrel there—thick with the season—twitching in

the grass and a hawk mantling his prey just

like a voice that I couldn’t hear told him

to do. In his golden eyes, I saw the low yellow

sun and the yellow flowers that friends

give each other when red means too much.

I remembered other things that had seemed

like something until suddenly things changed.

There was some grief in that, and some joy too. And,

this is where I was with my thoughts when he arose

with the squirrel and went off, pulsing, somewhere

into the wood where he could tear a life

apart in private. I became the poet.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Installment for collaborative book project and show with artist Mark Collins

Work in progress

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Awaiting Santa

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Have you ever stopped awaiting Santa, that proof that

something magical exists and that it knows you? Isn’t

there something that every little boy and girl wants

that only Santa can bring, like being fully witnessed by

another? Feed the holy say the scriptures, somewhere.

Cookies, milk, carrots: maybe they are enough of an

offering to nourish the spirit in a world that insists

we stop believing.

I don’t have a mantel. But, I can make do. 

(c) 2017/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Truth and Beauty" (a work in progress)

A Holiday Miracle Comes Full Circle

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

When you are self-employed, amassing tax deductions is as important as taking out the garbage. So, there I was on December 6th with a car load of donations, the last drop offs of the year. Yeah. Habitat for Humanity was to benefit from a water heater and grotesquely golden-yellow toilet pulled from my sister’s new home, as well as an aging stereo and slide scanner that had surpassed my technological capacities for repair - a gesture that sounds rather like “ker thump.” Goodwill was to receive yet another bag of waist-too-large clothing.  I had my personal trainer, Leon, to thank for that. 

I first paid my respects to Habitat for Humanity.

That accomplished, I began to fidget, repeatedly, with the turquoise turtle-neck sleeve that covered my turquoise-banded watch.  It had snowed two days earlier and I had been forced to take the long way into town; a cross-wise car blocked my closest access route to the highway. That hill should never be attempted in bad weather with a two-wheel-drive vehicle.  All the locals know that.  I had things to do. Year-end deadlines for various environmental consultancies. Holiday cookies to bake. Goats to tend before dark.

Drats. The loading dock was already occupied by soccer-moms, as well as a soccer-dad (impressive), busily tossing engorged black garbage bags of out-grown toys and clothing at blue-vested volunteers.  I’d have to park across the lot and walk 100 feet or so.  I did.

“Would you like a receipt?” one cheerful worker chimed to the soccer-types. “No,” they chorused in unison, barely taking the time to inhale and exhale the reply amidst tales of their children’s recent accomplishments. Oh yes, and the gossip about the not-so-accomplished things other people’s kids were doing.  I sneered. Either they don’t have to work or they had real jobs. 

“Would you like a receipt?” she turned towards me. “Yes, please,” I muttered.  I filled it out. “The white copy is yours.”  I knew the routine.

Back to the car, I thought.  Things to do.  I’m behind schedule. (Whose I’m not sure).

“Go inside. Look around.”  Clear, concise, and pushy. The voiced caused me pause.  I knew that voice well and knew that it had served me well, repeatedly, throughout my life - in big ways and small.

“Go inside. Look around.”  I stood on the asphalt, a yard or so from the car door, keys ready, yet looking at the store entrance. “Open,” it read.

“Go inside and look around.” Then the inner-arguments began.  I didn’t want to go inside. I didn’t need any more “stuff” of any sort in my tiny, under-renovation cabin. I had things to do. I slid the turquoise sleeve elbow-ward again.

“But,” said another part of me, “remember the lottery ticket.”  The lottery ticket?  Yes. I remembered the lottery ticket.  Earlier in the year the same voice had haunted me in a 7-Eleven.

My dream house had been without water for nearly two weeks and the dirty clothes had taken on a life of their own. I drove into town, picked a laundromat, hogged more than my fair share of machines, and wandered across the street to 7-Eleven for some green tea.  As soon as I entered the store, the voice began nagging, “Buy a lottery ticket. The tiki one.” I had never before bought a lottery ticket and wasn’t inclined to do so. What a waste of money.

But there I was, standing in front of the lottery ticket machine. Huh, there is one with a tiki on it, I noted. I bought it (two bucks), scratched it, and figured I didn’t know a damn thing about playing the lottery because by my calculations I had won $100.  I took it up to the woman behind the counter and handed it over without a word. I figured she’d either tell me how much it was worth or ask if I wanted her to throw it out. To my great surprise, she offered her congratulations and placed five twenties in my hand.

Yes. I remembered the lottery ticket.

“Go inside. Look around.”  Oh, fine.

I climbed the steps, entered the door, and walked past the cashiers while at least two parts of me still bickered. OK. Now what?  My attention was drawn to the back of the store - housewares.

I made my way past rack after rack of suits, dresses, and tops. Then bins of infant clothes, scarves, teddy bears, and baseball caps.  Housewares. I walked down one aisle - jars, glasses, mugs, vases, the occasional basket and plate. Around the corner and back again, down the other side.  Christmas-motif jars, glasses, mugs, and the occasional…

I could walk no further. I had been halted against my own volition. A chill streamed into my body and neck-hairs raised as best they could within the confines of a turtle-neck collar. Disoriented, fuzzy-visioned eyes fell, gazing onto the second shelf from the bottom. I forgot to breathe.

There lay a wreath, a Christmas wreath, which I knew personally. My lungs remembered the importance of breathing and forced a gasp.

I reached to take it into my hands. Could I? Was it real?

It was. I felt the straw-interior base, the fiber-fill stuffing, the swatches of multi-colored print fabric, the long red bow.  I rubbed my fingers over the hook, crocheted out of red synthetic yarn.

Some of the patches, mostly the blue ones, were sun-faded.  It had been well-used. That was a good thing.

I turned it over. No price tag. No matter.

I looped my left arm through it, held it tight, and bee-lined for the register. I was going to make sure to get it and get out fast. No one else was going to end up with this wreath this holiday season.

I handed it to the sales lady. She worked there often. I always enjoyed her cheery air, bright eyes, and warm, rounded face. I had yet to figure out her hair, however. It didn’t move. Hair spray?

She flipped the wreath over. “No price tag,” I remarked.

“Two dollars and thirty-five cents,” she concluded.

I was gonna burst.

“Do you want to know the story of that wreath?” I begged, smiling beyond my usual capacity to do so.

“Sure. Of course I do,” she obliged with a glint and a grin, just as I knew she would.

The lady who had been in front of me in line was heading toward the door. The mid-length coat she wore was smartly-shaped. Two other patrons with much laden arms cued at my flank. I was sure they weren’t amused by my efforts to garner conversation.

“My mother made that wreath,” I blurted. “She’s been dead for nearly thirteen years.”

The exist-bound lady halted and turned. 

The sales woman shouted to her. “Did you hear that?!”

“My mother made that wreath. She’s been dead for nearly thirteen years,” I repeated, as much for the benefit of my cranial analysis as anyone else’s.

“Oh my golly. Oh my golly. How wonderful!” bounced the cashier.

“I know each of these patches of fabric,” I added. “There’s Christmas stockings, that’s Easter bonnets…”

The two behind me stared. I could see them from the corner of my eye. Were they in awe, entranced? Or, did they have things to do and greatly wish me gone?

“I feel like I shouldn’t charge you for it - just give it to you!” The lady at the register declared, nodding rapidly, not a hair straying.

“No,” I said. “Please take the money.” 

I can’t remember how I got out of the store.

But then I was heading down the steps and into the parking lot.  The tailored-coat lady kept repeating, “That’s so wonderful. That’s so wonderful,” as she made her way to her car.

“Something told me to go inside and look around,” I said.  “I didn’t want to, but something clearly told me to.”

“Something?” She looked directly at me, her voice begging - no demanding - the correct answer.  “That Something was the Lord. The Lord told you to go in there and find it!”  Her voice was deep, bold, and inspired, yet melodic. I pictured her as the leader of a rightfully-proud Gospel choir.

“You’re right,” I replied. The Great Spirit by any name, book, or declaration was fine with me on such an occasion.

I gave the passenger seat over to the wreath while driving the long way home.  Occasionally I reached over and stroked it, letting the edges of the wide ribbon guide my fingers around the loops and tails.  In my mind’s eye, I saw her at her old Singer sewing machine. The stitches were flawless.  Anything craft-wise she could do.

It had to be at least fifteen years old.  At least.  Cancer had stolen her energy away from such things, especially in the last years of the struggle. Especially after the failed bone-marrow transplant.

I had placed an amaryllis bulb in a red, tin pot in my southern-most window. It was going to serve as my single holiday decoration, whether or not it ever flowered. There were so many chores on the to-do list and I was braving the winter by living within a short distance of a wood burning stove, my only heat source in way-too-drafty abode. 

A Christmas tree just wasn’t going to happen.

I hung the wreath over the right-hand end post of my four-poster bed.  I touched it again, and looked at the crocheted hook. It really was real.

Two holiday decorations.

I sat at my desk, planning to get back to the work deadlines.  Instead, I stared at the wreath, feeling her presence ever more strongly with every memory that flooded back to me.  I soaked in it.  I had all the time in the world.

It occurred to me that I had been thinking about Mom quite a bit lately.

And that’s when I fully realized it.

In just a few days, my eyes would open to the soft December morning light. The first thing they would see, hanging at the end of my bed, would be that multi-colored, partially faded, patchwork wreath.  It would be my fortieth birthday.

I called my little sister.  “Guess what. I got my birthday present from Mom a bit early.”

After a brief silence, she replied, somewhat nervously, “What? What are you talking about?”

I told her the story.

“I’m gonna cry,” she concluded.

Thanks Mom. I love it.

I love you.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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The Long Nights Moon

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Tell me one more time, what is it that

makes you restless? The long nights moon

has arrived and darkness settled in for awhile.

This is the season for dreaming.

It used to be that I could count stars with

my eyes solidly shut. I knew the pitched sky

from the inside out. Night was peace.

Night was solitude.

Things changed. I lost sight of tranquility.

This truth-challenged world took possession

of the awake, of my awakened heart.

Tell me one more time, what is it that

makes you restless? The long nights moon

has arrived and darkness settled in for awhile.

This is the season of longing.

I find myself in constant motion, trying to get

to some place that is safe for all of us. Some place

that I can invite you to. Some place that my

heart can rest.

I still believe in dreams. I still believe that we can

turn possibilities into something. I still believe

that there is a place that we can be together.

Awake or asleep, safe.

Tell me one more time, what is it that

makes you restless? The long nights moon

has arrived and darkness settled in for awhile.

This is the season for dreamers.

This is the season for dreamers.

© 2017-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Truth and Beauty" (a work in progress)

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Bittersweet

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The bittersweet vines hung there, in the trees,

by the dusk-cast river, orange berries bursting

from papered-sheaths.

I understood bittersweet.

You?

~

Sometimes we walk in circular paths that

make what is new seem so familiar,

sometimes, because it is.

This is our challenge: to distinguish reality

from mystery while never choosing

reality over the other.

You know what it is like when something

that lived a certain destiny becomes something

else entirely because it was loved in

a certain way.

That’s the nature of all things. Or, it could be.

~

When the sun set, I knew that it was still there,

on the trees, but I walked away anyway.

Bittersweet remains.

There is a dear, dear sweetness in that.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Plant Songs" (a work in progress)

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Faith

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I wondered if the katydid sitting atop the zinnia

knew that this will be its last day. Autumn cares

something about beauty, but she’s not one to

get attached to things, never to moments.

My garden is telling stories about what has been.

If you listen closely, you’ll notice that they are

stories about faith. That’s what seed planting

is: a practice of faith. That’s different than a

practice of promise, mind you. Pay attention

to that.

What will the waxwings do for full bellies

this winter? They are at the frost-softened

persimmons and those wild grapes high in the

red maple much earlier than usual. Is it

wisdom or foolishness that has them there?

Ah. Now that’s a question, isn’t it?

~ /Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Wonderment" (a work in progress)

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Winterberry

(c) Jamie K. Reaser

Her generosity sets in just as the sun becomes limited

in his givings. “Beauty can persist through seasons

of scarcity,” she says. I’ve been learning to listen to

this voice, learning to see what is ever-present.

Memories can be explored in this way. Sometimes,

that changes things.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Plant Songs" (a work in progress)

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Moon Poem

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I’m waiting for the moon, impatiently. She 

was swallowed by a cloud dragon who has

not yet given her back to the night sky. I want

to say that this is unfair, especially when she

is full, in her splendor, something that I want

to see so that the world feels right again.

Have you ever waited for things? Precious

things? In that longing is everything that

could save us all.

© 2017/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Truth and Beauty" (a work in progress)

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Henry

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

“Who is he?” asked the beagle as Henry

stepped out of the car.

Henry, he said. He’s had a hard life

and he’s going to stay with us for awhile.

“Is he nice?” The beagle asked. “He’s kinda

funny looking. I’m cute. He’s simultaneously

handsome and ugly. How is that possible?”

Yes. He’s different. Different can be special.

Good special. Please, be polite and say hello.

“Hello, Henry. That food bowl is mine. And,

that muddy place under the porch is mine too. ”

Henry: I smell cats!

The beagle: (to the man) “He’s easily

distracted, isn’t he?”

Henry thrust himself into the shrubs

and grabbed a stick.

The beagle put her nose to the ground and

started walking the fenceline, “I think he should

go back to that place.”

Give him a chance. We all need a chance. Maybe

you can teach him something. You’ve been loved

all your life. He needs to learn to be loved.

The beagle looked up, raising her nose into the

air, trying to make it seem like she’d just caught

a scent. It was really an idea. She had an idea

about Henry.

Time passed. Henry learned to focus, not quite like

a beagle can focus, but something like that. Henry

learned to be loved. Like the beagle and the man

love each other.

Then the man said, it’s time for Henry to go. He

can have his own person now, someone who can

love just him.

“I want to help,” said the beagle. “I can tell his story.”

“He’s different. Different can be special.”

You can love different.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion"

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for poetry.

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The Spider

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I can’t say for sure what artist brought it into this world,

eight legs and beauty on its mind. I did not fare as well

in Geometry, I’ll admit. There is a reverence, an awe for

the magic it spins and then weaves in the night, mooned

or pitch. It pains me so to encounter it first thing

on a trail, feeling it thick and sticky across my face before

my eyes adjusted to the wild. To destroy a Master’s

work: how do we do this and yet keep going?

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Truth and Beauty: Poems on the Nature of Our Humanity"

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This Day

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I know Death’s footfalls, and what a chicken sounds like
when Death arrives upon the roof of the coop, and
descends, and rises again: accompanying two beings at
the threshold of the worlds.

This is how this day broke away from the night. Death
was there and nearly gone before I arrived, but I saw
the last of Life still embodied in one, so determined
to continue in the other, and Death, fully occupying the
small space between them: the neutral mediator.

It was like the dream that I had just left behind in which
something had to go so that something else could boldly
make its way into the world.

©2017/Jamie K. Reaser
From "Truth and Beauty"
To be published by Talking Waters Press

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The Deer

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I know what it is to be hunted,

to be the thing that someone wants to destroy

because it will make them feel better about themselves.

I’m not sure how I learned to be this thing,

this thing that is okay with that. I’m not a martyr.

I am an offering.

My challenge is to make peace with

never knowing

what for.

© 2017-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Truth and Beauty" (a work in progress)

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Berries

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

A container full of berries

is a measure of time

and effort,

and something

else that escapes the

lid and is the sweetest.

I could say more, yes,

but I want you to

find out for yourself

how summer frees

things. It can be hard

to remember.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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Freyda's Poem

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

She was walking along the country road,

plodding with sullen eyes that, upon my

arrival, lifted, somewhat, and asked:

“Is this more pain coming?”

And, daringly:

“Could it be hope?”

My open palm offered her the kibble

that I keep on hand, in a jar in the truck,

for just these moments. They are often

enough. She took it into her jutting ribs,

and then went for the pile I put on the

passenger seat. That was my hope.

That’s how our story started.

~

There’s some part of me that understands

the texture of abandonment better than

most things. I could tell you stories, but

I can’t explain it to you. It’s one of those

tangible mysteries that defines us.

We are the legacy of the dispossessed.

~

What makes a being disposable?

I wonder about this when I pick a dog up

on a winding country road, although, sometimes,

it is a cat, or several. And, too, there are the

men with cardboard signs on the street corners,

all having written imploring words with a thick

black sharpie.

Once, it was two young women. We talked.

They had abandoned themselves. They said:

“It is less painful this way.”

~

Rumi wrote to his beloved that:

I want to see you.

Know your voice.

Recognize you when you

first come ‘round the corner.

And, then went on to add:

I want to know the joy

of how you whisper

“more.”

What is the opposite of abandonment?

Is it this?

~

I decided to call her, Freyda.

It means, joy.

~

I think:

If we want to know joy,

we can find our way home.

Anyway, that’s my hope.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Truth and Beauty: Poems on the Nature of Our Humanity"

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I'll Trade Places with You

: 

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The blind man entered the metro car.

“Are there any empty seats?”

“No,” said the man sitting next to me,

in front of the sign that reads:

Priority Seating. Federal Law Requires

that These Seats Be Available to

Passengers with Disabilities and to

the Elderly.

Quizzically, again,

“There are no empty seats?”

“No. There aren’t any empty seats.”

He didn’t even glance up from his phone.

Didn’t look him in the eye.

Arising from my seat, the words came,

“Here. I’ll trade places with you. A little

to the left. Okay. There.”

I’ll trade places with you.

I stood, gripping the metal post, my

sight coming to rest on the clearance badge

around the neck of the face-to-phone

man.

Veterans Affairs.

Veterans Affairs?

Really?!

I couldn’t work my way to anger,

couldn’t get to a place where I could

speak my mind,

grief for this world arose so thick,

it was disabling.

I’ll trade places with you.

When did they stop teaching kids the

game in which they try to walk in

each other’s shoes?

I remember it. I had the biggest feet.

~

I don’t know where we are going.

There’s a part of me that wants to get off.

But, I am still standing here, holding on.

~

The blind man wouldn’t give up his seat.

~ /Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Truth and Beauty" (a work in progress)

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