The Quiet

    

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I am inspired by the quiet.

Not the silence that would indicate

that I have gone far away from

here and forsaken the meaning

of my life,

but the quiet that comes into a place

like a soft-landing owl;

the quiet that says

everyone and everything is present,

and they are listening.

It’s a quietude that

is too often reserved

for the thresholds of life

and death,

when the spirits are busily

re-minding us of

our emotions,

and testing our concepts

of right

and wrong.

In this world,

How generous we can be with life

when we stop needing to be the

mockingbird on the post

morning,

noon,

and under the nauseating yellow glow

of dingy street light.

There are days when voices

should be reserved for

speaking nothing more than,

“Yes,”

And only in response to

the questions

that no one dared

ask.

© 2012-2020/Jamie K. Reaser
From "Truth and Beauty" (a work in progress)

Feel free to share

 

To Know This World

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

To know this world

is to surrender to the hostile forces

of Love –

The ones that leave you naked

and struggling with your anonymity

in the face of everything that

has recognized your magnificence.

I say this not out of experience,

but out of faith in that which

is determined to bring us alive

even as we make grand investments

in our reluctance

to live.

What can a day be for

but to

open the eyes?

When you love yourSelf

enough,

Even this is possible.

© 2012-2013/Jamie K. Reaser

You Must Breathe

Image: origin unknown

When there is thick, soft silt below your feet

and water

dense and long overhead,

re-member that you must breathe.

You must fill your lungs.

You must rise, at some point,

and breathe.

This being human requires

that we let something

of this world

in.

© 2012-2020/Jamie K. Reaser
From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"
Published by Talking Waters Press

Feel free to share

The Rhythm

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

We’ve all heard

our mother’s heart beat

from beneath her skin.

This is our rhythm –

an inherited sense

of right and righteous timing.

“Home” and “Not Home”

are sequences, patterns,

familiar and unfamiliar.

All your life,

memory has been

the drummer –

and you’ve marched.

Has it served you well –

This rhythm?

This onward march?

Recently, I’ve been lying

on the Earth in fetal position –

and listening.

This is when I really re-member

that sound, this feeling.

This is when I re-member the

ancient rhythms of

The Mother.

This is when I know

I no longer need to

march.

This is when I know

I’m Home –

Everywhere,

and always.

The First Mother

would have embodied

this rhythm.

Somewhere down the line

someone missed

a beat,

And we’ve all been missing

it ever since.

So profoundly missing it.

Now.

Head upon The Heart.

It’s up to us to re-member.

Head upon The Heart?

Cheek on bark or moss or stone.

Are you listening?

This is what the future

will hear.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Feel free to share