ONE BECAME THE LAW, ONE BECAME JESUS

CHORES

Most of what happens

has to do with chores,

and so it goes with the poem

and scrapbooks. Those Yankees

of the 1950s all smoked Camel

cigarettes and pitchers threw

nothing but lucky strikes.

I breathed my father’s smoke

looking at my baseball cards.

Those scrapbooks defined me,

alone with Sitting Bull.

War paint came with smoke

signals and the peace pipe

came later. I had sky

and railroad tracks. Railroad ties

were my first quatrains,

and my short feet found gravel

between ties breaking repetition’s

monotony. I walked rails every day,

falling before I wanted to. Two

lines. Both ends of town.

Great Northern and Soo.

Grandpa and Dad. One

became the law, one became Jesus.

Walking railroad tracks to Willow Grove,

one sings one way, sits on rocks.

Hands full of feathers, North Dakota opens

in trees and the poem reveals itself

among Indian graves, warrior rocks.

I walked to get here. Walking the one way.

Coming alone. Enough, and it lasted.

I walked through it all, not reaching the ties,

falling from rails. Losing my balance,

over and over. Away from town.

Away from the depot.

Away from the elevator.

She was willing. Guide and companion.

It was me who couldn’t find it then.

It’s clear to me now that Jesus was the outlaw.

Jesus wasn’t smoking no peace pipe.

He liked those cigarettes.

LSMFT, is all he said.

Crazy Horse looked up.

Did one of them smile? 

Grandpa was the lawman.

He wore his cop hat cockeyed,

walked with a limp

and had a missing thumb.

Crazy Horse did not pass the pipe.

Talking with grownups remains a chore.

Most of my failures come from here.

Talking with grownups.

Did I ever really talk to a grownup?

I don’t think so.

This took a lifetime to learn.

I stay away from them when I can.

I moved into the back seat with the kids.

It’s easier being older.

I stay away from grownups

like I stay away from sit-down dinners.

Jim Bodeen

21 June—22 July, 2013