True Nature

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Does a bird choose

a branch that

cannot hold it,

or build a nest too

small for its unhatched dreams?

It’s not in its nature.

How often have you given

your heart to people

who cannot tend it,

who do not wish to hold space

for your most intimate silences?

Why is it in our nature?

I’ve seen how a flower can

make an entrance way

perfect for a bee,

How a frog can finish

the call of another.

What is this emptiness

we pursue

in our attempt to know

more than we are?

Tonight I have no answers.

The winter moon is filling herself

up in my window pane

and we behave like strangers

not intent on introductions.

Only the honey in my tea

parts my lips and cajoles

my tongue to speak

with a sweetness

that has yet to ripen

by my will.

Oh,

But it is of no use,

this holding back.

It’s simply in my nature

to love.

What vacancy Rumi knew of

idiot compassion,

I know not either.

Two fools

we are,

courting from bedposts

across the span

of different lifetimes.

But the sentiment is no less

in fortitude

for the absence

of the other.

Branches and flowers

manifest

with no promise

of birds and bees.

And so.

Love.

If it is true.

© 2012-2014/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" (www.hiraethpress.com)

(Feel free to share. Poetry is meant to move.)

Dawn Kiss

Image: (c) Jamie K. Reaser, western tanager

The Sun,

dressed in dawn robes,

rose with time enough

to kiss the Moon, his beloved,

on full, wanting lips.

Birds,

still distinguishing themselves from

the wings of dreamtime,

looked abashedly at each other,

wondering...

How often had they

failed to seize

a precious passing moment...

A moment that could have

united the transiting heavens.

That was the morning birds

decided to sing.

(c) 2011-2013/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" (www.hiraethpress.com)

The Winter Wren

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

How can a little brown bird flit

across your path,

yet remain perched as a precious haunt

in your psyche for days?

The winter wren is a secret

come out from the thick greenbrier

to look you in the eye

and let you know only

that it has suddenly revealed

itself in the brisk, dancing

air.

What secret?

This bird took no measure

to say.

How often aspects of us

show up without announcement

or explanation,

flitting into our awareness

with the hope that we will

see.

We are more mystery to

ourselves than we know.

The sky can’t decide

on blue or gray,

and the clouds are directionally

fickle

as I ponder the winter wren

hop-skipping through

my dense woodland.

“What is it you want of me?” I ask.

“It’s a secret,” is the only reply.

And this is what I concluded:

I can love what I do not know.

Countless bodies are breathing 

in windswept thickets

around me, and without me 

knowing of them,

or them of me,

we are entwined and my heart holds

inexplicable space for them.

What is yet unrevealed of me, too,

is lovable.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life"

Feel free to share