HOW IT IS IN THE HOLY DAYS

THE CREATIVE IS HEAVEN

HOLY HOLY HOLY

Glass washed blue

beach, ground down green

star broke sand shard

Jim Bodeen

18 December 2014

CHINA GREEN TEA IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY

            --for j.r.

The holy woman

holds her tea cup

to December light

at the kitchen table

She has the word

but no house

She says,

I am a wild horse

She says,

Others are Clydesdales

Clydesdales sleep

in high-ceilinged barns

My question wasn’t clear

but she understood

Speaking to me

after she had gone

She says,

The wild horse dies of hunger

The Clydesdale dies of old age

Jim Bodeen

15 December 2014

12-14-2012—12-14-2014

            for Ana, for Jimmy Greene

My wife has written

her name with her sewing machine
in gold thread,

and here’s her father

playing saxophone

with her songbook

Jim Bodeen

14 December 2014

TSUGA MERTENSIANA

High Mountain Hemlock

Gets bark at 100 years

Buried under snow

Jim Bodeen

6 December 2014

TREES ACCOMPANY THE MAN 

Trees in accompaniment

with the man,

surpassing him,

even while endangered themselves—

Jim Bodeen
7 December 2014

OWL ON TIME, TIME WITH OWL,

A READING OF LEE BASSETT AS OWL

Owl time, suddenly.

Owl as nagual, the other self.

Owl as Ultima’s nagual.

As the owl goes, so goes the shaman.

Beginnings, and big ears.

The color of her eyes.

Their orangeness.

Georgio Morandi, his minimalism.

His still lifes, his best friends.

What do the deep eyes of your heart think?

The captain said he’d fly us away from all this cold.

The Costa Rican owl wants more than a contract.

This is not the Perfume River we’re running.

No, no, no. Fogman-Painter.

Give me fog-on-snow-breeze, unbutton the mask.

Why no IV? Fogman, Why no IV?

My first understanding of fog, oh man.

You mean the first time?

I can’t answer that. It can’t be answered.

It goes against the nature of fog .

Fog is the curtain call for the loaded brush.

Less is not more. Less is less. Let’s be fog-clear on that.

Dawn suddenly before sleep, yes.

But let’s not pretend. Nights are long.

Nights long and longer fogey man-eyed one.

This is the waiting that comes from waiting.

Quiet was the promise that broke the world.

Owl of worship and wonder

hiding in a pear tart, come out here.

Bell in sugar syrup baked in sweet bread.

Yellow leaves under Blue Sparrow Bridge.

The nourishing road of Not-Having.

Less delivering its less is less on time again and again.

Owl feathers in the hand and no owl

coming up from no ravine.

The ravine dream of the pop charts.

Tart pop, that one in free fall fast fade.

Prey light pray and pounce. Ah, thee, there.

In Spain they know nothing,

but in Mexico, where the owl mates

with Aztec birds, there is born a new thing.

It is a heavy brush in a loaded man’s man hand.

Jim Bodeen

6 December 2014

FOLLOWING LETTERS

Voice of intimacy

Protocols of vernacular

Deep penetration

Jim Bodeen

6 December 2014

THE LETTER AND AFTER

Finishing a letter

out of gas, I say,

This, the best I can do.

Nothing like it, even shuffled off

in a paperless world. Not skimming

to get deep, here: Dante’s great

gift turning up, leaving sounds

down below. Those friends

in Denmark, here or there,

so many traveling songs

calling us to sing and breathe.

I ask my doctor,

Where do all the proper nouns go?

I’ve got a lead on Parkinson’s,

a new word, apophy,

not recognized by Scrabble,

reality that eludes words,

that can be re-searched

online, images included.

Actual books on said subject,

ours and astronomers,

the apophatic darkness,

coming all the way back

to small talk, sit down dinners.

Walks away, looking

for a song coming back

to itself in the old voice,

in letters all along. Alone

with the other listening

or not, reaching that far.

Jim Bodeen

5 December 2014

HOW IT IS IN THE HOLY DAYS

The score brought me back.

Perhaps the whistle in my ear.

The score was 34 to 4

with two minutes remaining,

when the short guys

on the basketball court

surrounded their big guy

in the corner, a defensive surprise

for everyone in the gym—

surprise for all but the coach

stalking the sidelines

directing young officials

with their whistles, 

his team leading by 28 points.

He was ready, this

Bobby Knight of nine-year olds,

signaling time out

with his karate chop

before his player is called

for the 5-second rule.

And this is how

I lost my non-violence,

approaching the coach

after the game

in his moment of victory.

It’s ok, I said, to coach aggressively,

(ignoring my belief that any coach

of children coaches

all kids), but that timeout

you called, well, there are words

for people like that,

I know you’ve heard them.

He tracked me down.

My daughter separated us.

My granddaughter looked at me

and asked, Grandpa is this a fight?

Jim Bodeen

2 December 2014