BLESSED PRESENT TENSE

Karen rings the bells
Amplified mercies
echoing songlines

Least likely honored
Down side world up
Weird blessings backward

Communing with No
Impersonal principles
Contraries abound

Jim Bodeen
31 January 2011

















NO'S ECSTASY

Contains a big Yes
The poet's sobriety
Skis unprogrammed light

Jim Bodeen
30 January 2011
















THE SOLIDARITY OF NO

Walking out with No
Into solidarity
Embraced by No

The excess I love
No, No, No, Never, No, No
Intoxicating

Jim Bodeen
30 January 2011


NO

Renunciation
20 years living with No
And No's cleanliness

Jim Bodeen
29 January 2011



FIRST POST FROM HIGH FOREST CAMP

"HOW OLD ARE YOU? ABOUT 5?" THE MAN ASKS
WALKING BY AS WE EAT OUR LUNCH

"Yup. Five and one day."
















THE CHILD YOU TAKE INTO THE MOUNTAINS
IS NOT THE SAME ONE YOU BRING HOME

Her mother has taught her to sign
and she signs she loves you
as she eats her sandwich.
High Camp is a light-filled surprise.
The girl is your granddaughter.
You're taking digital pictures of each other.
You laugh at what the other sees in the other.
You've forgotten you arrived here on skis.
You take a picture of her sandwich and show her.
She looks at it, and smiles.
You missed me, she says.
Uh-uhh, I was taking a picture of your sandwich.
She looks, then smiles.
She'll get in the next one.
She'll remember herself in the bread.

Jim Bodeen
28 January 2011


















THESE ARE THE WILDERNESS DREAMS

for Katie, 5

And this is the wilderness, this drive
up Highway 12, where we stop first to see elk
before returning to follow the Tieton River giving us our thirst.
Remembering last night's dream,
you mirror Black Elk, choosing not to reveal it,
saying then it might not come true,
covering probabilities adults
would hear it wrong and not get your world right.
It seems like years ago, Kate,
when I gave you the first dream catcher.
Children do turn into fish,
carrying God stories, and if any mother
is shaman-in-training, it's your Mom.
Lucky girl. But you might be the one.
I learn so much with you on the river.
The Tieton. Fish do give themselves
to people like you and me, giving their bodies.
When Uncle Steven cut the head off that trout,
he kept it from suffering. Yes, the Tieton's
full of mud, and high. Too much rain, too soon.
It's coming from the snow we're going to cross
on skis. Wildcat Creek gives us a chance
to talk about animals living in this forest.
We don't pet the elk because we want them wild.
We want survivors everywhere.
Cougars belong to the cat family.
Wild and wet, long live the wilderness yet.
We're going where the wild things are.
We need this place, and this place needs us.
Be careful. God, too, has a wild side.

Grandpa
27 January 2011


















FOREST PRESENCE PRINCESS KATE

Dreaming girl, ascending and descending,
exploring what can and can't be said,
living with dreams, practicing principles
of no secrets, truth-be-yours in high country,
which you carry, prophet-like into lowlands
with music, singing, telling, too, which songs
are heard by all, and which ones given only to you

Jim Bodeen
27 January 2011


















SUN SOFTENED CRUST OF SNOW

Uncovers two Chinese threads--
One red, one gold

One says living monks
in T'ien-T'ai Mountains
never heard of Mao

One says Red Guards climbed
down cliffs eradicating
poems of Han Shan

Is that laughter coming from Cold Mountain?

The way to Cold Mountain will never be written
The way to Cold Mountain will never be lost

Han Shan maps the way on wind and snow


Jim Bodeen
26 January 2011


HIGH FOREST CAMP WAKING

Granola with powdered milk
Spring Oolong Tea
Messages from the intuitive world

Mothership outside of the inside
Sandwich of old cheese
Step on boards on snow

Jim Bodeen
25 January 2011


THE TEMPLE OF LIGHT AND OUR LADY
OF PERPETUAL PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY

All crosses here come from crossed ski tips
and will get you in trouble,
but make no mistake, no mistakes
in this lodge, filling with light, practicing
to be nothing more than what it is.

Jim Bodeen
24 January 2011


MAY EVERY PRAYER
CONTAIN AT LEAST ONE CHILD
SHOWING US THE SAD DISTANCE
WE HAVE TRAVELED
IN OUR ADULT LIVES

Not that this prayer
would change things
for the children.

Jim Bodeen
High Forest Camp
25 January 2011


HIGH CAMP MONDAY PRACTICE
RUN IN THE MOTHERSHIP

Sadie jumps into the driver's seat
when I pull over at Dog Lake
to photograph dappled images
of water and ice dissolving surface
boundaries. Don't get a thing. First
time for the mothership in these trees.

Mavis Staples sings in the woods.
I have dog food, but don't have ski pants.
Didn't I ski four decades in Levi's.
Two pairs of long johns. I'll be dry
in morning. Walk to lifts
on skis, think of Teresa levitating

in Spain, walking with John of the Cross.
Light pack and notebook. Maria Coffey wanders
the infinite until she touches her moment 
in its first renunciating no.
Ski to High Camp. Grand kids,
Karen in my head. Skiing with grandkids,

New light to walk in changing snow.
Chair lift punctures soda in pack.
Notebook ink absorbs the cola.
Coffey documents intuition,
enters the ear in a cave after dark.
Raining in camp. Snowing in paradise.

Ski ten runs. 10,000 vertical feet.
Practical dreams for MS. High Camp--
a lodge for those who like the outside.
Outsider's Camp, I say to myself.
A solitary place to warm hands.
Temple of Light for Outsiders.

Jim Bodeen
24 January 2011

SNOW CHILDREN PLAYING WITH BLOCKS



Boy Stepping In and Out of Snow





HIGH CAMP

Out of wind, off the cliff.
No necessary turns to stay out of trees.
No holding those hands on knees
against one's best judgment.
No turning that uphill ski
into that straight into danger
down the mountain line.
Here it's hot chocolate and peanut butter.

Jim Bodeen
23 January 2011





SNOW FIELD

Parade, City of God, Kid's Castle.
This looks like children playing with blocks.
A fancy grocery list. What it is.
Kids playing with blocks.
Magic carpet, platter, and chairlifts--
swinging children up the mountain.

Jim Bodeen
23 January 2011



Mountain Down Dreaming





MY FAMILY MARCHING

Nothing soft about this walk for my daughters
marching with their daughters, talking with the one son
before the march, laying out the story
until fear crosses his vision leaving the house.
Legacy of this house: a family still carrying a dream
before the threshold of the Dollar Store.
Carrying signs old and new, reading between dream lines.
Nothing settled in our town, simmering,
while ICE agents prepare to strike in Ellensburg.

Jim Bodeen
23 January 2011


LIKE THE OTHER GIRLS

Grandma dresses us
dancing with the girls of the world
Mama talks to us in whirling tip toe steps
We know more than one word
for the same thing  So many kids
can say it only one way
We know this  We want to dance
with those other girls
the ones with snapping castanets
twirling through forests of mariachi music

Jim Bodeen
23 January 2011


















SAMMY IN SAMMYLAND AFTER THE MARCH


Listening to drums, Sammy takes my pen
and notebook. I thought
I was supposed to be the fish
for my children.
The parable feeds strangers
from many tables.

O Children Turned Into Fish,
O God Of All Surprises, children
turned into food for the world
feed some wicked appetites.
You are the Trickster of all Tricksters,
God Full of Buckle and Break,
God of all Grand Children.

Jim Bodeen
23 January 2011







Achievement, Confidence, and Play in the Natural World,
Along with Short Commentary on Adult Constructs.

LITERATURE THAT MEANS BUSINESS
















SUNDAY MORNINGS WITH MAMA

So many places to find you Mom.
So many ways to hear your story.
You are life unfolding.
With God in your knuckles
so much of what I didn't know
comes to me through your fingers.
When we quit with language
I thought it was all over
between us. You were so right,
that day on the way to the Yankees game,
mad at me, giving me all I needed to know,
You don't have to go to El Salvador to find God.

Jim Bodeen
22 January 2011



DATE IN LATE AFTERNOON

Karen shows me where to look





































SKIING AGAIN WITH KAREN

Words get out of the way

Jim Bodeen
20 January 2011




















Water into ice
into water melting ice
on a body of water




















THE WONDER OF OWNERSHIP

My neighbor's house--now?
My neighbor's house?

Women who built this house,
my friends and neighbors--gone.
Nobody owns this house now--now
someone's making money from padlocked doors.
Telephone number on front door
says who to call, and I've called.
The hand behind the gold paint
claims a kind of ownership, too,
would you say? Grafitti
owns the night. Ownership in the age
of the great foreclosure on America.
The house is for sale, that much
you will be told, if you ask,
when you call. You won't be told
who owns it, or who you're buying from.

Jim Bodeen
21 January 2011



HOPE FROM HIGH CAMP--BEAUTY FIRST

Crystal ships on an avalanche slope
God in my mother's knuckles

O God in Mom's knuckles
Extending reality's bones
I walk this hand with my fingers
Thin skins over loose snow

Grateful inside unseen border worlds
given me from ceremonies
handed on in waves by common barbers

From fear that brings full potential
Faceting crystals refusing
Earth's invitation to bond

Jim Bodeen
19-20 January 2011




















We pray, too, for the Hippopotamus, shrink-wrapped in plastic.



BRING OUT THE CONGA DRUMS, BROTHER
I THINK WE SHOULD JUST PRAY ON

Why we're all pissed off
Talking with tattooed young men
Have the other's back 



Walking my alley
March on, just a little while
Pick up the dog shit

Jim Bodeen
MLK Sunday, 2011



SUNDAY MORNING

Belonging to the work, Wild Path,
Fingering the arthritic knuckle of my mother.

Jim Bodeen
15-18 January 2011


LITERATURE THAT MEANS BUSINESS
IS THE BUSINESS OF NO THING

This is theology of song.

Jim Bodeen
15-18 January 2011

DIGGING SNOW PIT DURING AVALANCHE TRAINING

DANGER ROSE

Think of a cone
Summit at center
Rings as levels of elevation
Eight sections

Colors of danger scale
Not a map
Visual of avalanche danger
for daylight hours

Jim Bodeen
6 January-16 January 2011





AVALANCHE ROAD FIELD BOOK
THE GO GETTER IS A RED FLAG
BEFORE CROSSING THE SOUTH SLOPE IN LATE SPRING
SUMMIT POWDER FEVER

--for Scott, Dave, and Solveig

Coulour and islands of safety.
Level One Decision Making--
Experiential based--managing the dangers.
Formations of layers in the snowpack.

Snow shapes and forms and signs of crystals--
needles, plates and dendrites decomposing in wind.
Snow falls to ground at different times and rates in different weather.
Oxygen in snow.

Oxygen in snow--breathe, melt, freeze.
Know what you don't know.
It's a skin check.
You have to get back.

What they didn't know
is that couloir above them
was a mushroom-shaped entrance to trouble.
Narrow gulleys with steep gradients
aren't always corridors of passage.

Entering snow and cutting it is high risk--
existing tracks don't make slopes ok to go.
Two main types--loose snow, slab snow.
Most avalanches come from moving slabs.
Stress versus strength.
Am I going to add enough stress to snowpack
so that it loses its strength?
A slab breaks as one piece, pops as a cohesive unit.

Put sun hitting new snow in spring on south slope
into a photograph. Don't cross it.
Can't see weak layer inside snowpack.
Terrain selection's your most important skill.
Are we going to cross avalanche terrain?
The snow shoe crowd following summer trails in winter
may be worst way to go.

Snow grains change over time
as soon as they hit the ground
beginning metaphorphic process.
The geology of snow.
Continual change on surface and inside.
Wind, temperature, sun and rain change surface.
Buried surface hoar can sustain new snow
but not new pressure. That's why we cut the snow.
Melt-freeze metamorphism may not bond.
Faceting--those crystals--common when snowpack is shallow--
when it's cold. These snow grains inside snowpack,
hollow, conical, five and six sided crystals,
beautiful under glass,
we need to find those variables.

We were going to ski the slope
but decided to dig a pit.
Check snow stability.
Get your good to go from the snow.

Create a plan for poor visibility.
Explore the options.
Eyes on everywhere.
Avalanche is not the only danger.

Where I want to go
Where I could go

Jim Bodeen
6 January-16 January 2011


















FARMER AND SKIER SINGING

Dust on snow.
Dangers of dark snow.
Dust on snow makes snow dark.
Dark snow's a fast melt. Too fast.
Dirt traps heat and melts snow, clogs tractor.
Dust brings down snowpack for all--farmer and skier.
Those storms coming from the SW
is what I'm talking about.

Jim Bodeen
4 January--16 January 2011



FOUND POEM IN THE NOTEBOOK
DURING AVALANCHE TRAINING

Most of what a fireman does is practice.

Jim Bodeen
15 January 2011
















Beacon practice with multiple burials at Alpental
during Avalanche Training Exercise with Pro Ski Guiding

DIGGING THE SNOWPIT: OPEN LETTER AFTER AVALANCHE
TRAINING AND BACKCOUNTRY SKIING--ON GEAR, GUIDING,
SNOW, PREPARATION, THE BODY, PRACTICE, AND AGING

Everything said about snow goes into the notebook.
Opening Paradise Basin, Hogback Mountain and the Goat Rocks
to alpine skiers dressed for chairlifts and lodges redefines the job
of Ski Patrol and Search and Rescue crews. It's not enough to warn
with $500 fines. The border beckons. Crossing it changes one's world
and one doesn't go back. I know about vision quests.
The most memorable photograph in our family's album
is a self-portrait my son took of himself in the Bob--
Bob Marshall Wilderness in Western Montana,
purifying the body and ridding himself of lessons learned
in the family home. Learning to take care of ourselves.
Making our steps. This is an invitation to paradise and beauty.
No guarantees on this journey. Welcome to the backcountry.

My son took an old pair of straight skis--K2 Xplorers,
and refitted them with the Freeride heel release binding,
making backcountry possible with skins. He did this for me.
To his credit, he doesn't do this until I ask.
Free the heel, free the mind. The practice I did inbounds
doesn't prepare me for the outback. My legs can climb
with the young but my kick turn on switchbacks
makes me a liability to any traveling back and deep.
I don't have the practice necessary for steeps
and I'm slow to adjust heel height with skins
on critical ascent turns. My pumping heart
tells me what others can see with the objective eye.

Shovel and probe in the backpack.
Beacon strapped to the body.
Fireman Yellow is shade and texture
of my Backcountry Access Stash bag.
Smart work of beauty. Avalanche basics
are reviewed with waterproof illustrations
on the inside pocket carrying the shovel.
I didn't get the saw to cut snow.
Replacing Luck is stamped in sans-serif letters
on my Suunto M-2 Compass. AIARE Curriculum.
The American Insitute for Avalanche Research and Education.
Get Educated, Stay Educated, waterproofed pages
in the Field Book read. Avalanches don't know
you've taken this course. Where we go, how we go,
is a list of red flags. Avalanches don't care
what time it is, either. Companion rescue
is your only chance of survival.
Our teachers wrote the book we're using.
If recovered in 15 minutes, survival rate is 92%.
At 35 minutes survival rate drops to 37%.
Most deaths come from asphyxiation.
In the granular flow, hands up, over head,
cover face and create an air pocket.
Snow contains oxygen, but breathing
melts the snow and freezes it. You'll be
breathing carbon monoxide in minutes.

Watching my son with probe and shovel is good.
How to probe is as critical as carrying it.
They break. Attention from all is focused.
But I'm carrying a camera, the only one
taking pictures. My focus is different,
I'm remembering a movie on hypothermia
from thirty years ago. The man with the camera
paying more attention to flower petals than weather
coming in. I notice an open zipper on my pack.
This feels a bit like Basic Training to me. I'm twenty.
I remember the day I quit the bayonet.
Just dropped it. This isn't for me. 45 years ago.
The beacon's not a bayonet.
I'm holding a Geiger Counter in an old movie
looking for gold. No time for dada.
The young instructor doesn't laugh.
She steps into deep snow close to me,
Hold it into your stomach.
Let the arrow follow the signal it finds.
Let your body follow the signal.
She brings me back, makes certain I get it.
My body feels clumsy in ski boots,
walking uphill in a snow field
crossing an avalanche path.
The buried person will be someone I love.
Looking for a crutch I say my age to myself.
Lives are at stake.
One's age is one more piece of data.
Point last seen limits the search zone.
The average burial depth is 1.1 meters.
Start digging on the down side from the victim,
shoveling fast, throwing snow to the side.
You'll move a ton to a ton-and-a-half of snow.
After you get the body, real rescue begins.

Jim Bodeen
15 January 2011



Stop Here. Stop. This is Highway 12

HIGHWAY 12 STOP RULE

Stop and get gas in Naches.
Stop and say hello to the mother of those soldiers in Iraq.

Once on the way up the hill,
once on the way down.
Stop once going each way.
Stop and take a picture of that morning light.
Stop at the Naches Ranger Station.
Stop to look at the feeding elk at Oak Creek.
Stop anywhere and say thanks.
Stop on Highway 12 where you've never stopped.
Stop so that you're not racing to the ski lift.




Stop so that you get all the light you can from this day.
Stop so that you hear that song one more time.
Stop and ask yourself about basalt columns.
Ask yourself how that basalt cooled.
Stop for the frozen lava.
Stop before the climbing rock.
Remember the hike with Lacy Dreamwalker
and the time with rattlesnakes.
Stop for toast and eggs.
Stop for a milk shake.
Stop and take a pee.



Stop at the Little Red Schoolhouse Ski Shop.
Get a mask for bad weather.
Stop for the beauty of the snow.
Stop for Big Horned Sheep licking salt off the highway.
Stop to take off your jacket.
Stop for that truck throwing rocks at your windshield.
Stop and call Karen.
Stop and look at the Tieton River. Look.
Stop for the ice on the Tieton.
Stop and remember all the places you've camped.
Stop here because you've never stopped here before.
Stop here because you've only stopped here once.
Because the last time you didn't get it.
Because you didn't get it all.
Because you'll never get it all.
Stop at the Ranger Station on the way down.
Stop and get a map.
Stop and remember those firefighters that didn't make it.
Remember Dan telling it.
Stop and remember the parents grieving in the newspaper.
Stop and put your hands on that memorial. Stop and read the names.
Stop at the Wildlife Refuge, gift of Esther and Ron Bauguess.
Stop here even though there's no place to stop but you have to.
Stop and look at those cattails in water.
Stop for those 22 acres preserved for wildlife in 1983.
Stop because the map doesn't help.
Stop here because it's the Wenatchee National Forest.
Here, where Karen's car went off the road with Paul
on the way to White Pass.
Stop here at Bear's Canyon Trailhead.
Stop because the river's icing up.
Stop here because you belong here.

Stop because this hill is your mountain.
Stop where the Tieton runs into the Naches.
Stop for that truck full of hay.
Look in your rear view mirror. Always something to stop for there.
Pull over for the beauty and stop.
Because you promised to say thanks,
pull over and say thanks.

Stop here because you belong here.
Stop because you are both a young mountain and an old mountain.
Stop for the high school kids who drove off this highway drunk,
through the railing into the Tieton River, the friends of your children,
your students. Stop because they are still in the river.
Stop and remember the corner you couldn't look at for years.
Remember how the ice came from your son's mouth
and the mouth of your son's friend, the brother,
and from the music that came from their tape decks.
Stop and remember the poems and the music.
Remember how it all comes out sideways and raging.
Stop, too, because it has to be this way.
Stop and honor the way it has to be.
Stop for this semi sliding off the road in front of you this morning.
Stop for the immigrant driver learning about ice.






Stop before you get to Rimrock.
Stop by Tom's cabin. Stop and rememberTom.
Remember what he gave you. What he gave those kids.
Stop and remember his dream. Remember the school with his name.
Remember you're helping him live what he didn't get to live.
Stop and remember that.
You know that Tom is a mountain.
Stop and remember his Jeep.
Stop before Waterfall and remember the times.
Remember the kids the two of you brought up this mountain.
Remember their ski clothes changed ski fashions forever.
You're still grateful for that.
You don't have to remember Tom's cancer.
The cancer is nothing. Nothing at all.

Stop and remember the snowmobile crashing.
Stop and remember the phone calls. The cries from your daughters.
Stop and remember the father holding his son. Your friend.
Remember the silvers your friends have taken from Rimrock Lake.
The number of smoked silvers you've eaten with your fingers.
Remember the son's blood on the father's hands.
Remember the flesh you've sucked from the bones of the fish.
Because you can, stop.
Remember the father's tears.
Stop here because you have all day.
Stop here because you're in no hurry,
because everybody else is going on.
Maybe they're in a hurry and maybe they're not.
You don't know.
Stop and let the skiers go past.
Stop for that song.
Stop and write in your notebook.
Stop here because you've never stopped here.
Stop here because maybe you've lost count.
You can't say it too often.
Stop because Division Ridge holds all the sun there is to hold.
Stop because you've been thinking about this for a long time.
Stop for fallen rocks on the highway.




Stop at Wild Rose, Hause Creek, Bethel Ridge, Soup Creek.
Even stopping is dangerous.
Nobody wants anybody to stop.
Wild Cat Creek by Rimrock Grocery.
Rimrock Grocery wants you to stop.
Stop before the tunnel where grandkids hold their breath.
Don't stop in the tunnel but honk.
Honking helps kids hear the echoes.
Stop for the rainbow. Stop for any promise.
Stop at Horse Shoe Cove, Indian Creek Corral, Clear Lake.
Stop at the school bus stop.
Stop to remember the time your son had to pee so bad
and you couldn't stop, it was too dangerous,
and you handed him the bottle and he peed in the bottle
spilling on his hands crying. Remember telling your grand kids.
Remember them giggling at their uncle.
Remember them asking you to tell it again.
Stop for the slow vehicle turnout.

This hill is your mountain. Stop wherever you want.
Remember eating oranges with your children in the car,
remember singing songs with them after skiing.
Remember how you never wanted it to end, this ride home.
Stop because you're on this mountain. You'll never get down.
Stop and laugh at those who say you must come down.
You can't stay on the mountain forever.
Forgive them as you laugh.
You're not from here, but this is your mountain,
North Dakota boy--old man--even those plains you come from
are mountains becoming you and you'll never get off.
Stop for those mountains. Stop for these. Stop for mountains
forever being mountains. Stop for the rivers running from them.
Stop for these mountains on this highway. Stop on Highway 12.
Stop and say thanks. This is the Highway 12 Stop Rule.

Jim Bodeen
January, 1971--14 January 2011