TRAVELS WITH MARTIN LUTHER

HOW MARTIN LUTHER GOT TO NORTH DAKOTA

is beyond me, and not my call.

Ones followed him, calling themselves

Lutheran, and they begat me.

I spent the morning pulling Chinese Lettuce,

a weed whose name I learned only yesterday.

I'm out west now, old, still tagged

with my beginnings, and a Catholic

imagination (as much as one can be had)

(not being there in the cradle)

for having spent much of my life

around Monks, Benedictine, Trappist,

and Chan Buddhist. That's a mouthful

for someone with prairie roots

(wild roses everywhere still hunker against wind)

and I suppose still being here

you might wonder where this is going.

It's going towards the absolutely other,

what can't be discussed in any sense

and puts me out like it or not

with no insurance, flood, fire, tornado

and plain health if such a thing exists.

I guess I've said too much already.

Jim Bodeen

23 May 2017

MEDITATION IN THE PEW

Be known to us, O Lord,

that we may be your risen

body in the world.

            Lutheran Offertory Prayer

Martin Luther did some

name changing himself.

When he went into hiding in 1521,

he was called Junker Jörg. After

posting his 95 Theses, he called himself

Martinus Eleutherius, Martin the Free.

Cloaca, the Latin word for sewer

is how Luther referred to the world.

In his native German, Luther

called the world a piece of shit.

Jim Bodeen

28 May--31 May 2017