INDEX FINGER DIPPED IN WINE

for Lucille Viola Bodeen, 9 April 1924--15 April 2011

Mom at Safeco Field, 2001

 

CALL AND RESPONSE WITH MOM

DRIVING WITH HER ON THE WAY TO OUR HOUSE

FOR COMMUNION, I ASK HER

ABOUT THE CONTINUING FALLS:

HER LAST WORDS

Oh, they're not that bad.

Jim Bodeen

15 April 2011

● 

REMEMBERING LIDWINA VAN SCHEIDAM

        1380-1433

Prayer and visions be yours Saint Lidwina,
on this your feast day, the 14th of April.
When your skates go out from under you
on the ice, your body no longer able to hold you
over all that slips and falls, you became one
for the disease never-before-named. Your name
gives suffering a new word. The fall,
the broken rib, the triggering complications.
Patron Saint of Ice Skaters and Multiple Sclerosis.
Shedding skin, body parts, and bones.
Sweet perfume from intestines in a vase.
One sore from head to foot from the age of 15.
38 years of suffering--Christ's three days on the cross
drawn out past the length of his life.
Patron Saint of Chronic Sufferers.
"When the rose bush blooms it will all be over."
Inspiration for Thomas a Kempis' Little Garden of Roses.
What a book. Leo XIII canonizes you.
You, so good to visitors in your little room.
Beginning to understand.
Your life as a prayer to God.
Suffering pilgrims know God will listen to Lidwina.
Your special love for Jesus in the Eucharist.
Living on Holy Communion for years at a time.
Fasting in the mean time.
Offer the pain to Jesus. Give it to him.
Reminding us, those of us in good health,
living in plenitude, in abundance,
to thank God as often as we can.
Now.
Your life, Lidwina, full and complete.
Driving one like me. God bless.

Jim Bodeen
14 April 2011

●

FRESH LENTIL SOUP IN THE ENGLISH TUREEN

--for Peggy Grimes

"I want you to take this home
with you when you go." She wraps
the blue tureen in newspaper
as we talk. She's starting

to give things away
and she's grateful
that her son's friends
have become her friends.

Karen puts the cotton-woven
cloth from Michoacan
on the kitchen table
where the tureen sits,

a roadside chapel calling
us to beauty as we walk
through the kitchen
for cracker or cookie.

The delicate ladle
is a bell calling us to make soup,
to take it all in, sop it up,
wanting bread, promising restoration.

Jim Bodeen
13 April 2011


LINES FOR DALE MILLER

We crossed paths over 40 years
talking God and Schools,
equally flummoxed by both.
Practicalities of his vision
confirm what his family knows.
He helped send teachers
into the homes of every family,
to find out what might make
things better for kids.
In the pew he asked any question
that kept his God authorized,
large, and free to be God of all.
The dog he loved to sit with--
ask his family about that dog.

Jim Bodeen
9 April 2011



BETWEEN THE SEASONS OF THE BODY

Water completes itself in rain

Water on the move
Melting, dripping

One of the core movements

Contraction and release out of the mountains

Jimmy Huega on skis
Jimmy Huega and his great can do
Jimmy Huega knocking his way through slalom poles

Can-do-disease-wracked body birthing hope

Jim Bodeen
11 April 2011

HOLY EUCHARIST WITH MOM

IN OUR LIVING ROOM

THE DAY BEFORE HER 87TH BIRTHDAY

The pastor asks if he can bring the food.

We look at photos of Mom

in her uniform dressed for the game.

Only eight years ago?

A choir of elders sings Dylan while we eat.

Knocking on heaven's door.

Pastor holds the wine for Mom.

It's strong, she says.

I dip my finger into the tiny cup

for the last drops of wine.

Moistened finger touching Mom's dry lips

ending the meal.

Jim Bodeen

9 April 2011