MAKING STAPLES TO HOLD THE DRAINAGE

SCREEN IN THE BONSAI POT

Four turns with the pliers

says the master,

Go make the staples.

The bullet behind the bullet. Bang Bang.

The bison in the brain, charging,

with 10,000 years of built up speed.

The failure to place the arrow in the bow.

Measure the hole on the bottom of the pot.

Right turn at 90 degree angle

away from the hole

and back across the diameter of the hole.

Back again, that quarter of an inch.

The left hand that has made all the difference

signals, sign saying, I didn’t bring you this far

for this, you’re on your own.

The master on the turn table with his tree says,

Go make two thousand of these

and come back and see me.

Make your measurements as clean

as the bends with your pliers.

The screen must be tight for the life of the tree.

Master and muse before me.

One visible, one invisible.

Where is the source of the great terrors?

Poetry is one of the ancient ways.

Nearing again, an intersection with no signposts,

pliers in your pocket for the sober and practical,

perhaps both ways go to the other side of the mountain.

No one at the intersection is talking.

Jim Bodeen

23 March 2014