WHERE BACK AND FORTH COLLIDE

WHAT HAPPENED TO CHRIST
ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTMAS LETTER
FROM MY FRIEND

for Pastor Ron Moen

The chapel went up in flames
just before Christmas, 1953.
Before vespers. My friend,
a student in seminary, and Jesus?

Jesus ran free, fleeing the flames,
free to roam--the run of the university,
kindling wherever he went,
"fiery awareness." Ever inflammable,

my friend says, crossing time,
"with the mysterious love of God,
in Christ," now roaming streets
and neighborhoods, hanging out

in prisons. Hanging out, suffering.
With the suffering. My friend,
who sees me as I am, still hangs
with me after 20 years. He nods

before and after we talk.
Sometimes he laughs. Both of us
more at home in prison
than roaming free, reaching for candles

flickering with burning spirits
not ours, burning a Christ path.
"Freeing us to kindle," my friend says,
repeating "fiery awareness" a third time.

This man knows me in all my fires.
He knows what he gives my stubborness.
He guesses I'll stop at Jesus fleeing the flames.
My friend is a grandfather on his way

to spend time with his children,
the parents of his grandchildren.
He knows about the baby in the manger.
Neither of us knows what happens next.

Jim Bodeen
25 December 2010

ON THE PATH OF LISTEN AND SKI

for Steve Pulkkinen

Finns on skins in World War II.
My climb out of Paradise Basin.
Practice on back country skis with a released heel
and skins holding me to the mountain traverse--
dressed to be found in case I go down.
This pleasure is not the history of pleasure.
Soviets offer Finland two pounds of dirt for one pound of gold.
Finns dress in white with an unlimited supply of skis.
Ski Patrol is the invisible enemy, mobile.
Dark uniforms make easy targets. Sweating
under my helmet with too many clothes,
I lose too much heat in the climb.
Fast moving death in snow. Part of the history.
My hike claims its roots in prayer.
I don't give a hoot for military history
but I like the story of Finns on skis--and this:
at a wedding on a Caribbean beach
a man wearing a Panama hat tells me about Sisu,
his Finnish ancestors, displaced persons--
"DP's" arriving by the boatload at midcentury.
The word Sisu says all about us.
Whatever it takes. You can beat us
but you're not going to win anything.

Jim Bodeen
24 December 2010

THE WITNESS WATCHES ONES WHO HAVE
SURRENDERED ALL AS A THING OF BEAUTY

for Erica, Karen, Vonnie, Evelyn, Kelli, Roxana


What will happen to them? is a question

of our disbelief, drawn into a circle so tight it travels thrown

into the arcs of stars, in starlight.

The special ones, children of atrocities,

attract the light of the universe, turned

to magnets of love and weightlessness,

sometimes returned to small towns

as ambassadors of love, still clothed

in vulnerability that cannot be penetrated,

still breathing daily life with no insurance policy in their name,

belonging to God, given to God, embraced by God.

Their call, the one we listen for, saves us all. Sometimes.

Jim Bodeen

23 December 2010

●

Out of the Loopin
Goat rocks dream ice Christ
Ski light dark time boom

Boundary flags wave
Goodbye to the light
Drop Flash White Speed Show

Man Ski stands in wind
Descending songline's
Listening tower

Jim Bodeen
22 December 2010

CARRIED ACROSS DARKNESS ON SKIS

Sound never stops

Sound arrives and arrives

Like shapes of morning

Jim Bodeen

21 December 2010

BEFORE TIME IN NORTH DAKOTA

Before North Dakota
In the office before it was an office
Holding office, here, before it all, held--
Given these knees, a kind of rent, on loan
Further back than the Kiva
Kiva before the word
When all was Kiva coming up from below
Before Chaco
Dark on this day
And plenty of time to look for light
Found something in all that
A found something
The tiny skin boat carries a man over snow

Black Forest Ham on a sweet roll
The dream of the oatmeal raison cookie
Inside the mouth
Oh
Tiny jolts of brown sudden sugar
Sweetness inside spiked raisons
Fermentation of light
Oh, Oh
Fog blown, pale disc in afternoon sky
Gone, O, already

Jim Bodeen
22 December 2010

IT IS NOT THIS, BUT TOWARDS THIS

for Eric Don Anderson

It is one of the life studies. It is mine. The calling remains one of my "red threads."-- one that I wake to daily--going way back, way, way back, as Van Morrison sings. Back before such things as seminaries, back before any of the great religions, way back, back to when there was only music, or parts of music, what is called music, and some heard something maybe, and it was there, way back, lodged solid somewhere, back to the back L. Cohen sings about in all songs, touching down before skipping off stars in "Who Shall I Say Is Calling." Clues perhaps in the great and only songline. Back to that, towards that. Further back than that. I meet you in crossing the street, or back there, on the corner. I hear something coming from you you're not trying to say. Dying for that. You were there, someone, something...where back and forth collide. How are you? How were you? When and to what? Blood beautiful pumping in the brain bicameral. Traffic from there. Traffic across the border of the brain--listening there for dropped fragments of song. Dropping from your fingers like stardust. Dropped like breath. Breathing. It's never been about anything but that, heard notes in others, in the other, freely shared unaware of what it is coming forth on the tongue in spite of themselves--in spite of ourselves. Never learned away, never schooled for something else often off targetly called higher, apprenticed to that and that only, call it what you will.

Jim Bodeen

21 December 2010