The Navigator

WALKING HIGH DESERT MUSEUM WITH KAREN

She says, Turn here, and I say,

Which way? We’re not yet

 to streambeds.

Watching her

with her camera

and smart phone,

composing.

The merlin falcon,

built for taking birds

from the air,

hitting speeds

of 240 miles per hour—

yellow feet—

day-time birds

have feathered feet

to quiet their approach,

sacrificing a bit of speed

to cut the sound.

Cars and electricity

the great killers of birds.

This is Karen the witness.

She is winding water.

She is the stream dropping

into flat country,

swinging from side to side.

She is a twisting loop

of meanders. Not from here.

The River Menderes in Turkey.

Ancient rooted River Maiandros

to the Greeks, doubling back.

Karen the river orphan,

depositing on one side,

scouring on the other.

Here she is again,

photographing mare and foal,

barbed wire sculpture, witness

to trees: water, air, and sunshine,

needing only these, the mother-root.

Here she is still water

holding water to her breasts

for those who thirst.

I follow her

as I am able.

This is Karen turning us.

“Turn here,” she says,

and I say, “Which way?”

Jim Bodeen

9 April—23 May, 2015

SHE IS THE NAVIGATOR

       —for Karen

of the Mothership, and when

she sees the sign to the Desert Museum

outside of Bend, images

surface. We were here

with our children, remember?

Weasels, warblers, beetles,

drawn here to this riparian

wonderland—habitat connectors,

edges. And she is drawn here, too,

a wonder to watch in her curiosity.

Where plant communities meet

is where she finds herself, orphan

mother of all, conduit and direct route

to and from. Edge’s dream,

one like her, going on,

navigating ways outside of words.

Jim Bodeen

28 April-3 May 2015

  

       

AND THEN IT WAS SPRING

Karen likes to walk in barefeet.

She didn't like the forest floor.

The two large Chinese pots hold

High Mountain Hemlocks

from Vancouver Island.

200-250 years old. They get their bark at 100 years.

Many of the rocks have spent part of their long lives

with our short ones. Tufa rocks

from Mono Lake in the Sierra Nevadas.

It was a crack house and it burned to the ground.
That I had a small role
in the burning of that house thrills
the storied soul. The last line
breaks in so many ways,
and I wanted neither
police nor theologians on my tail.

Jim Bodeen
3 May 2015

OFF PISTE AT 11,000 IN THE SIERRA NEVADAS

“There’s a pucker factor here,”

my son says. “But you’ll be ok—

It’s only the wind

trying to blow you

off the cliff.

Turn your skis

into what can’t be seen.”

Jim Bodeen

11 April—3 May 2015

Mammoth Mountain--Yakima

COOL THE WATER, WAKE THE TEA

Tell how the house burned

Without invoking revenge

How to strike the match

Jim Bodeen

2 May 2015