Patience

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

What is a moment? Where

does it begin? When does it end?

How does it spread itself across time?

I want to know if it is a line,

or a circle that has perfected storytelling.

I think that it can be the look in a doe’s

eye when she sees me seeing her

and we both lay down form,

like a sword, at our feet.

There is also the moon, how it comes

through the trees later that night, and

how the tree frogs will crawl, lanky-legged, out onto

the branches and trill lullabies to those

who believe that dreams aren’t just something

that happens to us while we sleep.

If I rush everywhere, as I’m prone to do,

I can’t find a moment,

though, logically, it’s there

in the company of so many others.

I don’t have time.

And, yet, I know the child of me walked in the woods,
and played in brooks,
and had long conversations with
friends that were never ever imaginary. 

So, that’s why I was there,
that late summer afternoon,
standing in the woods, praying for
patience to come back to me. 

And, that's why, in that moment, 
I was there, wondering 
what the doe had been praying for.

© 2018-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

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

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The Bear

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

It was a summer twilight when we met,

flanked in coneflower and wild bergamot,

a blackberry bush that we shared.

There was mud on the trail from the rains

that fell just hours before. We both made

impressions in it.

Sometimes it feels like it will kill me to

walk away from beauty. It's what I

breathe.

What's dangerous is what we have

forgotten most about this world.

(c) 2018/Jamie K. Reaser

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

Feel free to share