DEEP FOREST CAMP

THE WAY IT IS IN SNOW

The boys know

I have their skis.

They want to know

if I have both shovels

for digging the snow cave.

Jim Bodeen
8 February 2016

BELOW HOGBACK

Not always on skis

this journey on snow

Jim Bodeen

6 February 2016

DEEP FOREST CAMP

AT WHITE PASS IN THE MOTHERSHIP

The boys are in their sleeping bags.

Angelica sent hot chocolate,

conchas and bolillos for dunking.

I microwave frozen cheeseburgers

followed by a cup of butterscotch ice cream.

Crawl out of the sleeping bags, and

brush your teeth, get your jammies on,

and crawl back in bed. I’ll start

the movie. It’s called, Never Cry Wolf.

The boys get up and brush their teeth.

Alex comes over and looks at the notebook,

he asks, What are you writing?
I show him, the last sentence.

“The boys get up and brush their teeth.”

He smiles. He’s wearing a head lamp.

He likes the idea of no lights,

conserving energy. The boys

both like the headlamps.

It turns them into miners.

Jim Bodeen

8 February 2016

TWO BOYS

Two ten-year old boys with Grandpa in the Mothership winter camping and skiing.at White Pass in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. Movies, snow caves, High Camp. Eating snow and skiing. Being boys. Being ten. Bringing everything they have, using it up.

TWO BOYS

That time arrived

without anyone noticing.

The boys were there

and then they weren’t.

They still called,

and their language

arrived, familiar,

comforting, and

distant, too,

out of reach,

as though

I was someone

remembered,

presence as a kind

of memory. My offerings,

too, were different.

They were boys now.

Their questions no longer

surfaced. What was theirs?

What was mine?

What is a grandpa

after things change?

When the boy is all?

Jim Bodeen

8 February 2016