NO SAY AMONG THE STONES

WALK IT BACK MY BROTHER

Try telling how you found your lost pack.

Try telling how the gray rain cover camouflaged your fear.

Tell how your pack turned to stone.

Tell how you recovered the shame of your childhood.

Remember finding your perfect footprint

walking the other way.

Remember that perfect fit of who you were then,

taking you into that lost place

with such confidence.

This was always the trail.

This footprint your guide.

Your prayer of gratitude is OK.

Your account of the terror remains a better effort.

Jim Bodeen

15 September 2015

HAVING NO SAY AMONG THE STONES

Crossing West Fork of White River

where I descend into river channel

after coming through the storm

coming through Carbon Glacier

the practice momentarily gone

a recitation surfaces—combining

Wallace Stevens’ Sunday Morning

with Kris Kristofferson’s

Sunday Morning Coming Down

the descent into memory

coalescing with a sharp turn on the trail

I do remember to get the camera up—

critical moments in capturing

ephemera of the mind—

pellucid stuff—but remember,

the practice is gone. Descending

into the river channel in a flood

of images, I’ve not yet located

the trailhead coming out

on the other side, some 60 yards

on the other side. Gin-clear

on this and unclouded.

Tone-sharp if disoriented

then by beauty and relief

(and who likes the descent

more than this one?).

Light reflecting evenly

from all sides, and led

by trekking poles

carrying my weight,

my eyes are on the trail

for balance, what is lucid

is song, there are no eyes

for coming out the other side.

Crossing water then is easy,

a bit of athleticism going over rocks

furnishing another moment

of aging joy. This is the moment

before the trail turns towards the familiar

and home when I lose my way.

Following spaces in sand between stone

boulders is my mistake,

Maybe this is the trail…

Maybe these sand spaces is…

Begin a crossing through old river channel

right here, balancing,

careful now, careful, over and through

the great rocks, thrilling a bit? Yes,

at the rhythm of the way.

There’s the other side.

But where’s the trailhead?

is the first clue that here I am lost,

without a way forward.

Stop and look around, man.

Get your bearings.

Establish location and get that pack

off your back.

This is the admission of the passage of light.

Channeling Ranger wisdom’s

Ten Essentials Confidence

you have not yet found

the language—

Shine through me light

song of clarity and confession

and prayer awareness.

This isn’t the dark woods.

These are the big stones.

Boulders, man. Boulders.

Fear will arrive before you’ll try prayer.

That will come soon.

That will come when the weight off your back

arrives with your thirst,

lost spring in your legs off rocks.

Pull out that quart of pumped water

you so carefully carry.

Return to your pack.

Locate the way up

from locating the way down.

This is not late coffee and oranges.

These are the voices arriving one at a time.

These are the voices arriving all at once.

You have arrived at the Dynasty of the Rocks.

You have not been given an audience

Jim Bodeen

15 September 2015