LETTER TO PHILLIS WHEATLEY WRITTEN WHILE LOOKING AT HER PORTRAIT ON THE BLACK HERITAGE POSTAGE STAMP ISSUED 29 JANUARY 2026

 

LETTER TO PHILLIS WHEATLEY WRITTEN

WHILE LOOKING AT HER PORTRAIT ON THE BLACK HERITAGE

POSTAGE STAMP ISSUED 29 JANUARY 2026

            ...blooming graces, triumph in my song.

            ...a faithful tongue…

            ...imagination is the empyreal palace of a trustin God

            ...Now here, Now there, the roving Fancy flies,

            till some lov’d object strikes her wand’ring eyes,

            Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,

            And soft captivity involves the mind.

            Imagination, who can sing thy force?

            …each noble path pursue… Phillis Wheatley

Jupiter Hammon’s letter addresses you

as elder, poet, peer, Christian, and slave,

both of you freed, and today we might add

immigrant—that, like everything between us

seems stretched. Hammon, born in 1711,

was 62 when your book,

Poems on Various Subjects

Religious and Moral, is published, 1773--

Phillis, you’re 20 years old. Both of you

wrote poems. You crossed at 31,

Hammon dies at 95. Starting with his letter,

he calls you pious youth in the first

stanza; and in the second one, he says

you might have been left behind.

You were 8 when you arrived

on the slave ship Phillis

receiving your new name.

Black writers, black women who insist

in living in ink, your fellow poet June Jordan

writes, have been writing about you

            Still, may the painter’s and the poet’s fire,

            to aid thy pencil and thy verse conspire?

            There in one view we grasp the mighty whole...

            ...twice six gates on radiant hinges ring

            celestial blooms in endless spring

            And may the muse inspire each future song!

            ...these shades of time are chased away…

            For nobler themes demand a nobler strain,

            And purer language…

for 250 years. You open 250 Years

of Struggle and Song, Kevin Young’s

Library of Congress monument to

African American Poetry, while

Jupiter Hammon’s letter to you

follows your poems. You, then and now,

are the Mother of African American

literature and I address you as such.

Hammon knows your poems

when he writes, ...adore

the wisdom of your God.

Adore, because you might

have been left behind. He believes

America is a good place to be,

making Christianity possible. In Stanza 4

he says it stronger: God’s tender mercy

            Inflame the heart, and captivate the mind…

            How he has wrestled with his God by night

            To shield your poet from the burning day:

            Calliope, awake the sacred lyre,

            While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire.

            And through the air their mingled music floats.        

            Spirits dart through flowing veins

            ...Fancy dresses to delight the Muse…

            ...frozen deeps may break iron bands...

brought you here, and it’s worth

all the gold in Spain. Hammon

is a bit overbearing—I’m an old man

at 80, and know that voice, he may be

jealous, too, he wrote sermons

all his life, he urges, Dear Phillis,

seek heaven’s joys. Neither of you

can see the mess we’re in now.

Michael Harper’s anthology’s here, too.

African American Poetry, 200 Years

of Vision, struggle, Power, Beauty and Triumph--

you and Jupiter Hammon, presented

at the beginning, and Harper gives us

your other visions: To the painter,

to the Morning, and Evening, and death,

on leaving for England.

You’re at the beginning of it all.

I’m looking at your stamp.

Black and white, ink on paper.

25 Million postage stamps of you.

I write as one who has been lifted,

if not saved, by black poets. I sit,

struck by your poems traveling

through time, before any letters.

Phillis, we’re here in the living room, together.

All of us. We’re here, in the all of it.

Jim Bodeen

29 January 2026

ON THIS THIRD DAY OF FEBRUARY, 2026, JAMES BALDWIN, HIS STAMP AND OUR TIME

 

ON THIS THIRD DAY OF FEBRUARY, 2026,

JAMES BALDWIN, HIS STAMP AND OUR TIME

Opening the drawer on the coffee table

where commemorative stamps are kept—ones

I can use, that I hold out for me—not

the ones in sleeves archived for grandchildren,

looking for the James Baldwin 37-cent

commemorative I attach to post card

poems as gifts for friends, this Baldwin

stamp came out on 23 July 2004,

before Forever stamps debuted

in April 2007 (eliminating the need

to purchase stamps in small denominations

to mail a letter), the first Forever

being Liberty Bell, I’m re-reading Baldwin

during Black History month. Listen to him

on Martin Luther King, Jr. “...to state

it baldly, ‘I liked him. It is rare that one

likes a world-famous man—by the time

they become famous they rarely like themselves.’”

This drawer of loose stamps is a treasure

chest of Black history: Ernest Gaines,

August Wilson, Edmonia Lewis, Harriet Tubman,

Tousssaint, Gwen Ifill, Ella—Waters and Fitzgerald--

Arturo Schomburg—Oh, man! Baldwin

wrote this in 1961, “King cannot

be considered chauvinist, what he says

to Negroes he will say to whites, and what he says

to whites he will say to Negroes.” Baldwin

is five years older than King. Until King,

in Montgomery, Baldwin writes, the minister

could not change the lives of hearers: “All

they came to find, and all that he could give

was sustenance for another day’s journey.”

Baldwin again, bluntly, “...the white manuscript

on whom the American Negro modeled himself,

is vanishing. This white man was, himself,

a mythical creation of men who have never been

what they imagined themselves to be.” We’re

not done here, are we? The Baldwin stamp

matches a portrait of him, circa-1960

against a backdrop view of Harlem

where he grew up. So much story

in a square-inch stamp. One more Baldwin

gem: “Europeans refer to Americans

as children in the same way American Negroes

refer to Americans as children...so little experience...

no key to the experience of others.” To

become oneself. These stamps help me

in my studies. To stamps in these times, saving

for grandchildren Grandpa’s stand: February, 2026.

This 37-cent postage stamp, added to an envelope

requiring 71 cents postage, pure and extra,

political, with hand-cancellation, through the mail.

Jim Bodeen

3 February 2026

FROM THE KITCHEN TABLE, JANUARY, 2026, YAKIMA, WASHINGTON--TO THE WASHINGTON CATHEDRAL, 31 MARCH 1968--LETTER TO PASTOR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

 

FROM THE KITCHEN TABLE, JANUARY, 2026

YAKIMA, WASHINGTON—TO THE WASHINGTON CATHEDRAL,

31 MARCH 1968—LETTER TO PASTOR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

             PART II

I. After the Sermon

You’re greeting the congregation, Dr. King,

taking our hands as we file out,

and we’re slow go not letting go of your hand.

This is your last public sermon

and this time we get it.

You’ve just stepped down

from the Canterbury Pulpit

Cathedral Church of St. Peter & St. Paul,

commonly known as Washington Cathedral.

March 31, 1968.

           ●

15 March 2026

II. Dear Pastor King,

I’m going to call you pastor, Dr. King.

That’s what you are for me, Pastor King, my pastor,

and I’m coming from the pew. I, know, too,

your titles, and the epithets that come with you,

and I’m still inflated by it all, from the Canterbury Pulpit

to your place at the right hand of God.

We’re getting ready for your birthday.

I’m walking before breakfast listening with hearing aids.

I’m 80, and no longer need to embellish. You’re telling us

about Rip Van Winkel, how he slept for 20 years,

sleeping right through a revolution.

King George III. We have other worries now--

Yakima, Central Washington State, it’s cold, and the ink won’t run

in my pen. I take notes on the recipe card while walking. For the Pecan Pie

I made for your birthday.

On this day, end of March, 1968,

I’m 22 years old, 85^th Evac Hospital, Qui Nhon, Viet Nam

during the Battle of Tet begun on New Year’s lasting until

Johnson finally stopped the bombing. I’ll pick up there.

It’s my job to get our guys off choppers and onto planes

and out of the country to Japan, Philippines, or, closer to you

in D.C. at Walter Reed—Ft. Sam Houston for burned bodies.

I can relate to what you say about just to have crumbs,

about the appalling silence and indifference of good people.

I didn’t hear it then. I did, but. It wasn’t exactly chronological.

I had a teacher in high school, 1963, who told us, broke your story--

but I didn’t know, then, you wrote that Letter from Birmingham Jail,

then, 16 April 1963. No, I didn’t. Then, that, that I didn’t know.

When I did know, later, I put your Letter from Birmingham

into my New Testament. It’s right there next to Paul’s letters.

But in March 1968, I’m at the 85^th Evac, a GI.

And I’m bunkered with medics and we’re black and white,

and we’re brothers, as you say from The Canterbury Pulpit,

...standing in brutal solidarity...young black men

and young white men, fighting and killing

in brutal soldarity, that is us.

And in a few days,

when you are murdered,

that’s where we are, and that’s where I am.

And when you are killed, GI’s in Vietnam,

we’re all wondering what just happened. You say,

Dante couldn’t imagine it. We’re using other words,

talking in GI. And writing home. Writing home.

Brothers in Black and White. And that’s how

I remember those days—and Bobby Kennedy’s

still alive. No confusion there. “They send us

to Vietnam, and when we’re done here, they’re

going to send us back to the United States.”

What I won’t know for years,

Dr. King—I do slip in and out of those titles,

is that this is what’s in my letters. We’re together

in that hospital, one in bunkered solidarity, telling

this cruel joke on ourselves. “That’s what’s going

to happen.” It’s in my letters to Karen. When I found

those letters she saved, I felt redeemed. You say

in that last sermon...and when they come home

they can’t hardly live on the same block together.

Being part of the cruel joke is part of our blessing.

Dr. King, what I want to tell you

in this letter is this. We’re in the same pew.

We’re in the same block, too. Always have been.

It hasn’t been like this for everybody,

but that’s how it is here, with me, with us.

III. HOLDING ON TO PASTOR MARTIN’S HAND

I’ve been holding onto this one over 50 years, Pastor Martin.

I’m conscious of the man beside me, I am,

but this time, not my time, but we’ve been in line

a long time. I’m talking to you in a letter

and I’ve got grand-kids, grown now,

and I’m talking to them through you,

in your words, through that pulpit over time,

and then there’s my notes from what you

said on that toilet paper from Birmingham Jail.

I’m just coming to that,

They can hear that direct from me.

Dr. King.

Yes. That sermon.

That’s life.

Life in that sermon

that’s not going away never.

Jim Bodeen

15 January 2026

KATE AT 20

 

KATE AT 20

Sometime in December I began

thinking about your birthday like this,

Damn, Kate’s gonna be 20,

and here we are. Yesterday

a book of poems came

in the mail. Second

Childhood. I ordered

it for myself. Marie

Howe says she’s decided

not to grow up. I’m following

in her footsteps, Kate.

You’re the first one

I’ve told. Grandma

sewed you a cover

for a new sketch book.

You’re an artist

with an eye for eyes

who thinks in geological

time. Called

to all this! You!

What kind of child

would I be

if I tried to give you

advice on your birthday.

Gpa

21 January 2026

LATE JANUARY MORNING PRAYER

 

LATE JANUARY MORNING PRAYER

                         for K. M. And Martin Luther King, Jr.

We pray this morning for the clergy

on the streets of Minneapolis,

            and we pray for all on the streets

            all over the world.

We pray for the monks

praying for us,

                       and we pray, in particular,

                       for our own ELCA Lutheran clergy

          on the streets

                                in Minneapolis

                                and St. Paul,

                       and in pulpits all over the world.

We pray for all of of them,

                                           whether they are in the pulpit

                       or on the street.

We honk and wave.

We pray for them whether or not

                        they speak or       remain silent.

We pray, too, for those who have gone before us,

living and in your all-grace-filled arms, O Lord,

those saints, teaching us to love,

who rid our prayers of poison, Fr. Stanley Marrow, S.J.,

Brother David-Steindl-Rast, Father Merton,

Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Father Rohr,

including your blessed tattooed one, Father Boyle,

and the catalogue of many others.

We pray, too, for our clergy in Yakima, all of them,

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Jim Bodeen

24 January 2026

PECAN PIE FOR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR--2026

 

                                            PECAN PIE FOR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.--

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY, 2026

Part One: Invitation to the Party

We’re having Pecan Pie for your birthday,

Reverend King. We’ll be in the narthex

at Central Lutheran Church, Yakima.

Today is Monday, a baking day,

your sermons on the kitchen counter,

and Letter from Birmingham Jail.

I’m listening to Precious Lord

right now—Right now! Time is fluid,

and the pies, well—I was following

hearsay when I heard Pecan

was your favorite pie—they’re

out of the oven—two deep dish

large ones, butter and lard, toasted

pecans, honey and eggs, two smaller ones

for children. pie plates with smiling faces

—pies for kids during Sunday School--

like you say, Use time creatively--

and following up on your instructions

to Ben Branch, at the Lorraine Motel--

Play that song tonight at the meeting, Ben.

There’s more pie, than that, Dr. King.

Karen showed me how to bake Tassie’s--

bite-sized, and lots of them--

by the dozens. We’re going to lift

everybody up with your words--

you voice too—baked into those pies.

Thank God for your voice!

We’re lifting you, too, Reverend King,

we need you more than you need us,

I know, I know. I’m reaching towards

that long arc you helped us with,

we’re in trouble again, but before

I get there, I need some help from that song.

Stop me in my ramble. Who’s your favorite

to sing that song? Mahalia’s a first guess,

but Marion Williams? Aretha sang it

at 14—but you know what, I probably

learned it from Jim Reeves as a boy

in North Dakota. I played it

in the living room on trombone

for my Dad. I began living it then,

in 1955, and then with Elvis. None

of my family knew Thomas Dorsey.

Help me, Dr. King, to get to

where it’s hurting now. Aretha

sang it at your funeral. That’s

where I go first and always.

I can see I’m going in circles,

I want to talk about 1968—2026, too!--

how we suffer before we get real.

I still listen to Elvis. And this song

that cleans up my tears rolling out pies.

Jim Bodeen

13 January 2026

LINES FOR REX ON THE DAY OF HIS MOTHER'S FUNERAL

 

LINES FOR REX ON THE DAY OF HIS MOTHER’S FUNERAL

                        P.S. Before the poem: Love to you and Terri, Rex.

                        Christ Love reaching us today in Yakima. Thanks. Jim

Looking for a book of poems

your mother would like to find

on the coffee table, Rex.

Patricia Smith’s deep search

for voices never heard—Smith

found discarded faces

in 19^th Century photographs

and resurrected the people.

She wrote the poems.

Unshuttered what was shuttered.

I think your Mom would approve,

seeing them Sunday dressed

at their best in your living room,

listening to their stories

after Wednesday Prayer meeting

at Holy Temple. Looking for more

than your Mom’s approval--

but looking for that, too,

Mrs. Hazel B. DeLoney’s

story, formidable, goes before her,

from 1931, 94 years,

elder, supervisor,

goes before, and with, ...but

there’s so much more—your

sweet mother’s wide arms

can reach those unshuttered faces

knowing their clothes, knowing

where Patricia Smith’s poems hit home.

Your mother knows her son,

knows all her children, and knowing

her son—you, Rex—perhaps even

your Mom takes a step back in wonder

seeing how faces in your paintings

keep us alive, vital, going forward.

Jim Bodeen

20 December 2025