Bonsai Artist

THE OLDEST TREE

One hundred winters
revealed in shaped pine
potted beside bench

Jim Bodeen
26 June 2013


















BONSAI ARTIST

Pot these trees
working with your tiny tweezers

Jim Bodeen
25 June 2013

Wiring the Shimpaku Juniper

CONVERSATION WITH THE BONSAI INSTRUCTOR

I’m a beginner
At this point we're all beginners
Beginners beginning
Before bonsai beginner

Jim Bodeen
17 June 2013

 


















CONVERSATION OVER THE SHIMPAKU JUNIPER

When did you wire this?
Two weeks ago.
Take it all off.
 
Jim Bodeen
17 June 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOSTER PARENTING THE 15-YEAR OLD JUNIPER BONSAI

 

—for Miguel Sánchez

Gold glow tips called by light

stretching sunwards

as in hands of praise.

From humble beginnings, for and from

its creator, honoring another ancient way,

the gift exchange after a lesson, we repot

the Golden Juniper together,

four hands holding all that’s radical

in exposed roots. My teacher

trying to remember himself.

My son was a baby. Now he’s 15.

You’ll have to show me some things,

I say, thinking food and water,

not yet wondering about tools or foolish mistakes,

the intricacies of wiring tiny branches,

not knowing what confusions

the tree knows, having been there, listening, every day

with the father for fifteen years.

Jim Bodeen

June, 2013

 

WIRING THE SHIMPAKU JUNIPER

Wiring before the master’s eyes
Cause for much of the terror
Spotting turns on branches
telling me to start over.

He’s not out here now
in the garden while summer rain falls
running from wire to plant to fingers
and things couldn’t be any better.

Jim Bodeen
29 May 2013