Little People, Big Mountain

BOOGERS

Why do they call it, Booger King?
my grandson asks. Let’s write it out,
I say, taking out the notebook,
handing him the pen.
Spell it like the sign says,
B-U-R-G-E-R-K-I-N-G.
Now cross out the “R”
X it out.
Whatcha got?

Jim Bodeen


IN POOR COUNTRIES
I KNOW THAT

families often leave
the youngest child
with grandparents
in old age,
medicine
for their loneliness.

Jim Bodeen
17 February 2013


EARWAX

Sammie's taking pictures trying to make me smile.
I show her how to keep fingers from lens and off flash.
"The lens is the eye. It helps focus, too.
Sometimes the camera's eye is better than the eye in my head.
It can see things your eye can't see."

"Yeah," Josh says, listening from bed, "like earwax."

Jim Bodeen


GRANDCHILDREN TALKING ABOUT GOD
IN THE GOAT ROCKS WILDERNESS

God made the snow we ski on.
He made the snow
and he made the mountain
below the snow.
He made Hogback Mountain.
But he made the snow too.
He made the earth below the snow.
He made the sky and the sun and the moon.
But how did he put them there
in the same time during the day?
He made our skis and our helmets.
He didn't make snow yellow,
that's our pee.
But did he make our pee?
God made us,
but our papa helped him
when we grew with God
in our mommies' tummies.
But we grew in God's tummy first.

Jim Bodeen, listening
February, 2013

OLD MAN IN THE COFFEE SHOP

Called out by the barista
at Starbucks, I hear the sound
of my green tea frappuccino
coming up from the bottom 

of the glass, going through the straw.
"You're making more noise
than those kids, Grandpa," she says.
We're just done ice skating,

and the kids want hot chocolate.
Her follow-up, which I ask her to repeat,
shows generational condescension.
"Young at heart?" or, "Young in fact?"

I ask, to which Sammie laughs
repeating to her mother
getting into the car.
"The lady said Grandpa's

young in fat, Mama."
I pull out my notebook,
writing "fact" and "fat"
for Sammie to see, asking

if she can hear the difference.
We're in a movie now, back in Starbucks,
Grandpa's causing a scene, a ruckus,
old sucker with his straw.

13 February 2013


IS THE EARTH A GIRL OR A BOY?

Which tree is the Mama Tree, Grandpa?
Sammie asks looking at a family of trees
on the drive up the mountain.
Is the Earth a girl or a boy?

Jim Bodeen
16 February 2013

POLKA DOTS ON A FROZEN LAKE

Two months now
on the mountain

with little people
on little skis, each day

newly spectacular
as they master themselves

by the moment, sculpting
sandwiches around bread crusts

with their mouths,
mountains in peanut butter,

I stay home, close to the couch,
eyes closed.

Jim Bodeen
12 February 2013

















LISTENING TO CHILDREN ON SKIS

In the car, on the chairlift,
clicking into their skis,

calling for you, calling at you,
and even then skiing away

from you as you want them to.
Their language clicking in too.

Songs you haven't heard
in decades. Songs you haven't

heard since your own children
were young. You also,

so young. Then.
Writing it all down.

Trying so hard
to be poet.

Jim Bodeen
11 February 2013