Grape

When the old campesino’s

sunparched fingers

pluck you,

engorged and readied

by your own sweetness,

how do you feel?

(C) 2005-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

The Beloved's Breath

~ Image origin unknown

If you have suffered long enough
to know your own heart and soul,
a moment will arrive
in which you realize -

The breath that you have been
exchanging with the Universe
is that of your Beloved.

From this moment onward,
insist that the Past
and the Future
bow in utmost respect
of the Present.

(c) 2010-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

See Kayaker

...image from the Patagonia website (July 2009)

When you took to the Carolinian ocean

that summer day,

did you know She was calling you?

The Siren...

She is alluring

and She will not be forsaken.

The you of You she desires to take,

you will surrender.

Her song intends to penetrate

the soul.

It will.

And, at the very moment you

realize you are unabashedly naked

in your Truth,

She has succeeded in her seduction.

The Siren asks:

"Of these salty tears upon which you come to me,

which are your own?

Which have you manifested through Others?

And, which are rightfully yours,

though still outcast by pride and

shame and fear?"

"Be attentive gentle man,"

she urges.

"Within each, shed by Grief or Joy,

is the chemistry for Life support -

the alchemical possibility of

buoyancy upon the waves and tides

of this Water Planet."

That stirring and questioning

within you

about monsters in the

dark depths,

that's Her way of saying:

"You must let yourself

be devoured by the dangerous

beasts in your abyss

before I shall release you

to the shore,

Before you will truly know

your footing on the

shifting sands of Fate."

She has made no mistake

in inviting you to meet her

where the bodies of the worlds

explore each other’s touch.

Here you will feel their union

within your own being.

Here you will remember

the reason you've chosen

this inhabitance.

The gull above and within you

calls out your True Name.

She and I look forward

to the day you declare it,

as a gift,

to the awaiting horizon.

(c) 2009-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out: (www.hiraethpress.com)

Isla Negra

 

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The Sea laps

with determined tongue,

longing to take the

Poet’s skeleton toes

into her scorned, throatless

mouth.

Grain by grain

the body

surrenders.

One day,

or night,

he will ride her,

all of his fears of

intimacy

forgotten.

------------------------------

Isla Negra is the coastal resting place of
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

(c)2005-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

When They Make Love

Photo: Jamie K. Reaser

The Sun comes each day to

court the Earth,

warming her body with his

radiant heart.

She blushes streams

and ponds and rivers

when he woos.

And when they make love,

mists arise.

(c) 2004-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

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

The Woodcock's Courtship

Photo: USFWS

“Peent!” “Peent!”

says he recently returned.

First near, then far,

then near again.

“Peent!” “Peent!”

Is his soul fickle?

This audible advance and retreat,

advance and retreat.

No.

In the misty dusk air he circles.

With his feathered body,

he recites the ancient spiral dance known to all mystics,

He announces the auspicious Truth of who he is.

Suddenly the Cosmos calls him skyward

and he casts himself into the heavens.

Up he launches in body and soul,

outward and inward.

Rising.

He twitters in the winged voice of ecstasy,

a cascade of emotions released so emphatically

that they collide upon utterance.

His heart becomes frantic as he circles

a hundred meters arisen

above bog or meadow or powerline cut.

Twittering.

Twittering.

The heart must expand or explode.

The heart must expand or explode.

And then, at climax, he chirps.

He chirps a loud vocal, urgent “Yes!” chirp,

signifying his acceptance of

the holy duties of embodiment.

More vocal chirps amidst twittering.

And more.

His heart has expanded beyond reason.

Oh, take note:

The descent that follows is no defiance

of The Great Spirit.

It is instead acknowledgment.

Acknowledgment of his willingness

to pledge himself in service

Of the Great Mother.

Of Creation.

Of Eternity.

Of the destined union of God and Goddess.

Where he lands,

She awaits,

Ready to play Her part.

Ready, like he, to give the Spirits an intimate

flesh form through which to dance

and merge.

“Peent!” “Peent!”

© 2009-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

----

When woodcocks return from migration in the spring

the males perform an elaborate, aerial courtship dance.

The twittering sound is not a vocalization, but a sound

produced by a special feather in their wings.

The Burning Times

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


~ For Elspeth MacEwen [*]


“The flame tuik fast upon her cheik
Tuik fast upon her chin;
Tuik fast upon her faire bodye –
She burn’d like hollins green.” [**]

The old wife of Bogha
born of the yew tree
and bearer of light
was no more.

For a pin in her kipplefoot
and the sweat of mare
at Bluidy Brae.

Womanliness,

Earthiness,

W-holiness,

Mothering,

Trust in a neighbor,

Melting away in
the fright-ignited
rage of humanity.

I re-member it, Elspeth -

The quiet center of Death
and the raucous periphery
of the Dead.

How my heart burst,
outsized
by the longing
held deep in its redness.

Just to glimpse them,
Seeing
what I saw
in the possibility of them,
is all I ever wanted.

But the re-birth
has been my own,
delivered again into the
burning times.

As fire has been bestowed upon
me by Nature and by Man
I promise you thus:

I will extinguish what I must
and welcome the airs of time
to flame the embers of Love
warming in my heart.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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------
[*]Elspeth MacEwen was one of the last women hung and burned 
at the stake in Scotland for suspected witchcraft
[**] Traditional ballad, Earl Richard