PRAISE THE MUTILATED WORLD

DEVOTION

There are these things, Lord.
A couple of songs
reminding me
how little I can do
about so many things.
I play these songs over and over.

Lord, you have given me
territory others leave behind.
You have given me the land
of the extremes.

Under 5 and over 80.I love the young and old
and the edges they show me.
In this mix, Lord,
there are places
where I am repeatedly crushed
and can do nothing,

not a damn thing about.
No news to you, Lord.
I cry and get mad.
I'm not asking
for an intervention,

nor am I asking to be heard.
I'm in personal lockdown
trying to pay attention,
writing this poem, calling
what I'm doing, a prayer,
making a life
from what I've been given.

Jim Bodeen
25 September 2010


"PRAISE THE MUTILATED WORLD"

"There was an intervention for Abraham..."
—Mac Gimse

"Pick it up. Touch this," the sculptor's
message says. "My hands made this.
I want you to feel it." Sculpture has no voice,
I have to make it speak if I can.

The artist passes around the wax mold.
"Do something to it, and I'll cast it,
making a mark of the village." Hands do
different things, heating it with our breath

and thumbprints, even violence
because we carry toxins, too.
My thumbprint over Isaac's body
warms into wax. Burning

and not burning. "We asked the nuns,
'What are we supposed to do?'
'Go pick up a child, and hold that child
until he responds.' My friend got a response."

We exchange words at breakfast.
Between tables. Underneath conversations.
We spread grape jelly on toast,
hearing birds feed, crying for liberation.

Jim Bodeen
23 September 2010