Part of the Mountain Sustaining Us

EVEN ON SKIS

Watching Mom
Travelling like Lucille

Jim Bodeen
17 March 2013

 

PATTERNS OF LUCILLE

He watched his mother closely

Jim Bodeen
16 March 2013

OUR MOUNTAIN HOUSE

Small and vast
My wife and I
keep running into each other
After many years
putting dishes in the sink

Jim Bodeen
15 March 20123


THESE OPEN NOTEBOOKS

He wanted to show the mountain
as the other that was always with him.
Always with us. Even alone.
He wanted to take the mountain
away from those who said
you always had to come down.
He wanted to be as far from the empire
and as close to the empirical.
He didn’t want to go anyplace.
He wanted to walk through it all. 
           
This was his practice
and his way of praying.
He wasn’t asking for anything.
This is the life he was given
the day he was given the word.
The day he accepted it.
He wasn’t sure what it was at first.
Things became clearer
during that last interview
when he brought out his notebook
with the photos and the poems.
His notebook as a kind of public symbol.
Setting it before the university
on the coffee table.
Showing his pictures.
Showing his poems.
The man in the tie began to smile,
and then to laugh.
He kept on going.
“Look at this one.”
“Can I read you this.”

It was even worse
with professionals in robes.
They didn’t ask.
They just kept saying,
“You have to come down
from that mountain.”
“You can’t stay up there forever.”
Moses in chains.
Moses before the land of milk and honey.
Moses in that one moment of anger.

Given all this.
Birdsong. Bonsai.
That young man and what he did that one week.
Just this.
Coming at him, walking into it.
Nothing level or plum.

Jim Bodeen
13 March 2013