Saturday, February 6, 2010

Quietude
















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser
 
In the breath of the raging storm
I heard a conversation
about quietude.

I thought it ironic,

until my heart reminded me -

the I of the storm is
an inner calm.


(c) 2006-2012/Jamie K. Reaser 
Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out." (www.hiraethpress.com)

Friday, February 5, 2010

Awaken the Dead


Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser









Have you ever held someone’s
hand as they took their
last breath,

Known the settling coldness of the
Corpus corporum,

Closed vacant eyes for viewing?

Death has so many faces:

Tragedy, Blessing,
Deserving,
and Time.

You,

The Living Dead,

Which one is looking
back at you from
mirror and mask?

Headstones of greed,
coffins of the self-centered heart
buried under fears
and trivialities.

At what price have you
sold your soul and that
of your neighbor?

At what price have you
sold the souls of the generations
that would have come?

The obese ego enslaves
and starves the body,
whipping its hide with
self criticism and doubt.

You have taken your own
life.

But, this zombie poison
has an antidote
unmatched by plant,
pufferfish, or toad.

I call the people of the
world to

A wake.

2003-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

Thursday, February 4, 2010

The Unveiling


Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser








In the body of the world, says Rumi,

there is a Soul and you are that


So then

Unveil the world

Unveil the body


Let your naked eyes

Rest upon the Soul

of the world


That is me

and is you


What you behold

in your imagination

is the essence

of the foreplay

to follow


In the company of

The Holy Ghost

the

ménage a trois

with the universe

begins



(c) 2003-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Bless the Children










Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Bless the children.

Those who know no place called home,
Those who believe each day is their last,
Those torn from their mother’s breast,
and their father’s arms.

...the unparented, under fed, 
     frightened, and hopeless,
...the little ones ravaged by disease,
     or deeply cut and burned by brutality.

Please bless…
The boy who didn’t have the ability
to say “no” when “No!” is what he
desperately needed to scream.

And, the precious little, blue-eyed girl laid
out in the tiny white casket whose last and
only word was “Hi!”

Bless the children.

Spirit of Life,
I implore you to grant me the capacity to see the
wounded child in all those who
violate the sanctity of body and soul –
the perpetrator, neglector, and self-loather.

May I come to acknowledge and meet their tending needs
more fully than I suckle my own fears and rage.

May I have the courage and compassion to embrace
the children within me when they call out from the
monster-ous darkness.

Let faith be my swaddling cloth.

Please bless the children.

May I receive their teachings with gracious humility.
I too, pledge to go outside the lines,
invite others to play, share, 
and be joyously enamored by color.

I pray for soft blessings upon their foreheads
when you draw them near.

Sisters and Brothers,
May we now rest wakefully,
taken up into the gentle arms
of our shared Mother’s
unconditional love,

And,

May our Great Father’s wisdom
foster humanity’s overdue initiation
into an authentic and enduring adulthood.

Let’s all bless the children.

Sisters and Brothers,
May we now rest wakefully,
taken up into the gentle arms
of our shared Mother’s
unconditional love,

And,

May our Great Father’s wisdom
foster humanity’s overdue initiation
into an authentic and enduring adulthood.

Let’s all bless the children.


©2006-2019/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out

Feel free to share

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

In Matters of Love



Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser







In matters of Love
...

Do you need to posses
or be possessed?

Do you need to free
or be freed?

Do you need to posses your freedom
or be freed of your possessions?


(c)2003-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

Monday, February 1, 2010

Be Brave




















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


Die to what
you believe in.

Sob your final goodbyes
onto the red clay,

tear after tear.

Step up.

Put your one
true Life on the line.

Wiggle your mud-caked toes
above the precipice,
and look down.

The dark abyss longs to
free your essence
from its small storied form.

Step off the edge.

Let yourself fall,
heart first,
into your fear
of falling.

Your future
will catch you.

I promise.


(c) 2005-2020/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 


Feel free to share

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Emergence


Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser



It is time.

Crawl up from the underworld.
Depart your long stay in
thick darkness and clay.

Find your roots.

Find your roots.

Follow – straight or
spiraling - to the surface and
into the humid,
star-storied night.

Proceed slowly, yes,
but with the unyielding intent
to become the amazing thing
that you have never before
seen.

Can you feel your soft, tender body
up against the inside of your
dry, tight skin?

The edge. The tightness.

It tears you apart…

this back-splitting longing to
be larger than that which has
contained you.

I know that dream.

The one about having wings.

So, find that place where you will,
consciously,
take the last step as who you have been,
unfold your future,
and cast the old story behind you.

Emerge. Break free.

Surrender to your destiny,
lifting your long struggled form forth
onto a tree truck,
or a flower stalk.

The moistness.
It is always there –
conception, growth,
birth, life, death.

Notice the eyes.

Red.

Let the soft dawning breezes
caress your sensitive nature,
as you unfurl lacy,
iridescent dreams.
So clear.

Now firm in the daylight.
You are seen.

Listen.

The world is calling to you.

Let yourself be heard.

Trust in what you have been
gifted.

Trust in what you have been
gifted.

Take flight –

with this core truth:

Where you land
and what you do
will determine
how well grounded
we are in the future.

(c)2004-2011/Jamie K. Reaser