Snow-precious

NEW LIKE THAT

Flat light in the basin

is a caution light on skis.

Fall line and balance

both disappeared. I pull

into an alpine grove

I’ve known for two decades

hiking during summer.

Tree wells safe.

No danger of snow collapsing.

I’ve been with Mary

all winter in these mountains.

The mother of Jesus.

Greatest of all the prophets.

Come from below and afraid.

No one knows what happened.

Was she raped, like

my Methodist friend says?

Could be. That makes

more sense than virgin birth.

Sons don’t ask mothers

those questions.

I don’t think Jesus did either.

Belief in virgin birth

has nothing to do with Jesus.

Here now. In these trees.

I’m new in these trees.

Lost in flat light.

Unborn and lost

in a moment of pure seeing.

Jim Bodeen

3 February 2014

LATE WINTER SNOW STORM

Peanut butter sandwich

at High Camp, with hot instant

coffee from my pack. Chocolate

wrapped in cellophane crushed

and broken during snow

crossing, poured into my

mouth, delicious. Snow-precious

day. Snow now like rare metal.

That drought in California.

Those disappeared glaciers.

Clearing, like sun burning

away fog in late morning.

Snow storms in the east

on television news don’t

seem so reassuring in this light.

Wang Wei laughs across time

already in mountain retreat.

He says his poems

come from a person

he no longer knows.

Sitting at a table

in the grocery store coffee shop

down in the village

with my friend, he tells me

about two actors melting down guns.

I could go home now.

Get on my skis and go home,

but what’s the rush.

Jim Bodeen
31 January 2014