YET ANOTHER TRIBUTE TO THE PAST

Water after rain on White River

ran high over the one-man log bridge

and we couldn’t cross. My granddaughter,

disappointed, slept with her one-sided vision,

asking in the morning if the water

might have gone down.

It was the bridge gone,

and water running high

as we walked up river over stones

wrapping us in storm’s aftermath.

We carried our lunch in backpacks

until we found shelter among boulders

large enough to protect us from wind.

Both of us knew the storm’s terror,

and I envied her courage.

Storm had called on her early

to walk through danger.
What I folded into my sandwich

beside the river emerging

from the snout of the mountain’s glacier

comes up this morning from music

after a night-long confrontation

with grace, anger fully present,

holding back its bile.

Jim Bodeen

1 October 2013