WHAT GETS UNDERLINED IN THE NOTEBOOK

EXPLAINING THE GIFT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

TO MY GRANDDAUGHTER WHILE HIKING

SKOOKUM FLATS TRAIL ALONGSIDE WHITE RIVER

You see,

you see it.

You see, you see.
Not every one gets to.

You see the world in this piece of tree fungus.

You see. It's, it's...

It’s a butterfly.

That’s what I’m saying.

Jim Bodeen

12 August 2014

LIGHT DRIZZLE, CODE TALK, FOR TIM, 

ON THE MOUNTAIN

Break from days of 100-degree heat

on the mountain, drizzle cooling us,

slowing the fire in the old forest

causing us to change hike plans

walking alongside White River.

This is a dream school

and you’re our guide, Tim.

No five classes a day, here.

Some years one or two meetings.

Time turns short.

Thanks for the hike.

Skookum Flats, no second choice.

Time with your nieces off trail, bushwacking

White River and old growth forest.

Time with Mom & Dad.

Time taking my hand crossing

water on a log with vertigo.

You are Samurai.

Your nephews and nieces testify to your virtue.

So does your father.

As among flowers the cherry is queen,

so among men, the Samurai is Lord.

So sing the children

singing of you.

This is Bushido.

Soul from mountain culture

crystallizing the Japan

we walk into here,

Wilderness Family National Treasure Park.

Jim Bodeen

15 August 2014

POEM FOR MY JEWELER MARTY LOVINS

COMPOSED AT CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN

I’m going to buy a shirt

to build a wall

for my birthday pin.

The clip set at the top

so it will wear properly.

Finally I understand how to hang it.

So much better

than becoming a Windsor Knight,

I mean knot

on a silk tie.

These little pins

saving me all these years

time after time

from enemies

and dangerous situations.

Cosmology of angels

on a neutral background.

Jim Bodeen

15 August 2014

THE HEART-SHAPED STONE FULL OF CRYSTALS

—for Dheezus

What I pick from the river

is only the heart,

but my granddaughter sees

two rivulets of crystals

and treasure: Break it open,

Grandpa, we’ll be rich.

We’re rich now.

No we’re not.
You don't even know what rich is.

Break it open, Grandpa.

Do you want to take it

to Heaven with you when you die?

I’ll leave it with you.

You’ll see.

You may want to break it open then.

But you’ll see.

It’s your heart.

Jim Bodeen

14 August 2014

BROTHER AND SISTER LOOK AT CITY STREET ART

I’ve never seen a hot dog so big.

Look at that jelly bean.

Jim Bodeen

10 August 2014

WHAT GETS UNDERLINED IN SEAMUS HEANEY’S 1995 NOBEL LECTURE

I was the eldest child

we were in the doze of hibernation

that voice we could hear

none of the news entered me as terror

Pre-reflective, pre-literate, pre-historical

My listening became more deliberate

Still not the news that interested me

I credit poetry for making this space-walk possible

Poetry can make an order as true

to the impact of external reality

I credit poetry, in other words, both for being itself

and for being a help

Rejoiced most when the poem seemed most direct

an upfront representation of the world

or stood its ground against

A rapture and an ache

a different kind of accuracy

poetry’s ability and responsibility

devoted to things as they are

fortified by a refusal to grant the poet

any more licence than any other citizen

having to conduct oneself as a poet

the stability of truth

the destabilizing nature of its own operations

challenged yet steadfast in my non-combatant status

a way of crediting poetry

What Yeats tried to do: to hold in a single thought

reality and justice

The violence from below

retaliatory violence from above

that Tacitus was right: peace is the desolation left behind

bowed to the desk like some monk

finally and happily I straightened up

Make space for the marvelous as well as the murderous

True to life if subversive of common sense

a world for the respect of every tradition

agile give-and-take

“An Ireland the poets have imagined”

Poetry flourishing, rather than proving itself

the poet’s lap of honour

It knows that the massacre will happen again on the roadside

Poetry can be equal to and true at the same time

the “temple inside our hearing.”

But the thing uttered by the speaker is still not quite

     the story of what is going on

rapture came from music rather than prayer

its tone of supplication, its pivots of strength in the words

     in the sheer in-placeness

form is both the ship and its anchor

What necessary poetry always does

touch the base of our sympathetic nature

The thing which always is

The power to persuade that vulnerable part

It’s rightness in spite of the evidence

We are hunters and gatherers of values

Our solitudes and distresses are creditable

Jim Bodeen

11 August 2014