Who by Fire

CHAPPELL, NEBRASKA

While the Internet shows

lakes and state parks for campers

the grain elevator and water tower

emerge from the community

of trees that secures and holds

this town, larger than the one

we're driving to, and a small city

compared to the one I come from. I know

the park will be pristine,

that young people are online

all over the world. We stop here.

Karen showers while I bathe

Sadie. We walk to town

crossing tracks, stopping

at the Red Rooster where

the waitress takes our photo

sitting at the counter. Her

step son is a barber out west.

We walk back to camp crossing

the path once belonging to all.

Jim Bodeen

5 July 2010

LITTLE AMERICA

Somewhere in the picture book

of her childhood, Karen rode

in the back seat of her uncle's car

reading signs promising

an entire country

just so many miles ahead.

Little America, the signs said,

offering hope to children

of a place unblemished by adults.

Not humor, like Burma Shave,

but oppositional—

Oasis. Cards. Souvenirs

providing real transportation,

all under the master umbrella

of respite and certainty,

for children pulled back and forth

by uncertainties, wondering.

But no memories of this place.

Not one detail. Only those two words,

Little America,

pulling and tugging.

She's back tonight a half century later.

Little America on the 4th of July.

Sunday. Clean showers. 50-cent cones.

Camped in the parking lot

off I-80. Wyoming oil country.

The mother of all truck stops.

No hookups for a riverboat like ours.

No charge, either.

We share a quesadilla.

We walk Sadie between trucks

licking our cones.

Jim Bodeen

Independence Day, 2010

ALL I'LL EVER KNOW

     —for K

Show me the photo of Karen
in fourth grade with her hair
in curls, holding her hands
before her cheek
elbows on the bench
as the photographer instructed
the one framed in her sewing room
that makes me dizzy
trying to get her story right
a full decade before
she opens the door
and I make the only
promise that matters

That photograph
and I'll run the Mississippi River
to the Delta in old age,
wetlands, estuary, nursery—
Here I kneel before the rocking chair
grandchildren fight over

that moment
before the door of forever

Jim Bodeen
3 July 2010


MO(U)RNING BLESSING

The mothership is a riverboat
on oil's highway Your dreams
from last night included
everybody's greatest hits
every room in your house
full of the young
and shamans of every shape
and stripe brought their goods
Ring the bells someone said
and bells sang for all
food in frozen displays of excess
reminding us of the hunger
that cannot be cured
I hold a large spoonful of mashed potatoes
before my mouth
w.s. merwin be my guide
constant contact with karen
in other rooms
when birds testify we'll all sing
in the choir of the called

Jim Bodeen
3 July 2010

KAREN'S SHOES

Loading the mothership,
exhausted, Karen's just about asleep
as I enter the bedroom
with one last question,

"What did you take for shoes?"
"Yes." "What?" "Lots."
I pick up a pair of sandals
and return to the ship

to put my pair away.
No room here, I say,
seeing Karen's shoes.
Impressive work.

Jim Bodeen
3 July 2010

 ANESTHESIA

Brings its own forgetting
erases what you want to know
you still believe
in something other
than your future
Your friend is gone
Live with your dis-ease

Jim Bodeen
3 July 2010


WHO GOES

      —for p.l.

is who I'm talking with
No ahead or behind

all beginners
practicing—

both ways count
both the same
only breath takes

Oh, the breathtaking!

Principiantes
Those on the way
Those I watch for

listen to

Jim Bodeen
30 June 2010