TUESDAY MORNING PRACTICE
begins in the gratitude notebook
followed by Shade-grown ground coffee,
Greek Yogurt with Blueberries.
The letter to Kevin, more monthly
than Tuesday, goes back twenty years.
Six minutes from the airport
I'm early. Leave the motor running
listening to Arvo Pärt's Tabula
Rasa.
Tuesdays the plane comes in.
Swift Air ICE Flight. Buses,
usually two, arrive from Tacoma
Detention facility carrying
undocumented immigrants.
A small group gathers
from here and there to witness.
Our photographer sets up his tripod
in the corner, giving him the closest look.
He tells me he's been reading
American colonial history,
Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton.
Washington was kind of a host
for what was happening, he says.
I've just started Barry Lopez' Horizon
who begins his prologue with his grandson
at Pearl Harbor. Lopez and I
are the same age. Karen's, too.
They were born in the first week
of January, 1945. Another friend,
Catholic, back from Faith and Justice
workshop in Seattle meets
Sister Norma Pimentel, MJ,
who directs Catholic Charities
of the Rio Grande Valley.
Humanitarian Respite Center
responding to asylum seekers
from Central America. An artist
she paints a Honduran family
in pastels, Tomasito, for Pope Francis.
Those nuns, she
says, the bishops
let them have the
floor and talk!
She's fed 150,000
people.
Like I said, I'm six minutes
from the airport, but today
Ellensburg and Tri-Cities have driven here.
Walla Walla brings people twice a month.
Yakima's YIRN leader has a long history
working in human trafficking. We talk
about abrecaminos in Mexico--
Malinche,1529; Guadalupe 12 years later;
Sor Juana 1651, dressed as man,
hombres necio.
What other country
can name three women this famous this early?
Another companion tells about
Joanna Macy at Upaya, in her 90s now,
urging us, Don't be afraid of the anguish
because these responses arise
from the depth of your caring.
I'd never heard of her until this morning.
An ambulance from AMR pulls
next to the Air Rescue NW plane
carrying a man with head and neck secured
loading him on to the plane.
Detainees unload from the buses
and board the Swift Air jet
as ICE flight witnesses hold
their banner, No estan
solo,
You're not alone.
Barry Lopez was 68 at Pearl Harbor
with his grandson. Six years ago.
He remembers a glass of lemonade,
a woman's elegant dive in a hotel pool.
What will happen to us? He asks.
The photographer asks who
would like to blow the whistle.
A whistle blower? There's a word
in Spanish for banging pots at protests.
I'll bring it, he
says. As I get in my car
I remember Kevin asking about
Tim O'Brien, the Viet Nam vet.
I'd forgotten to respond in my letter.
I have the new Scenic River stamps
that runs through Kevin's place
in Sun River. I'll write another letter.
I stop at Jones' Fruit Stand,
pick out a grand Blue Hubbard Squash.
My mother-in-law makes pumpkin pie
from these, she says. And these?
The Cashew Green Striped Mexican.
This is a Sweet Meat, for pies.
I'll take these two, I say.
Do you make a lot of pies? she asks.
I don't know what to say.
These squash. So beautiful.
Jim Bodeen
22 October 2019
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