WALKING

WALKING WITH COOKIES

With pot holders in two open pans,

take the cookies from the oven

for Karen while she's in shower

while listening to Chet Baker.

Finished Luther-essay poem

written in 6-line stanzas

and sent copies in slow mail

with new Jaime Escalante stamp

to Lee Bassett and Ron Marshall,

poet-pastor friends, inventor and defender

of religion. Stand and deliver,

Jaime Escalante, Bolivian son-father.

Long night walking with the esopagus,

welcoming watermelon and coffee this morning.

The daily practice. The daily almost.

And oh, the practice of Luther

and his translation team.

Not in the poem, separate, a poem in itself.

Standing above, beyond, needing

its own place in time, its own attention.

Psalm18, verse 17, his favorite,

I shall not die, But I shall live

and recount the deeds of the Lord.

Summer days writing letters, translating,

commenting on the psalms, practice,

and all that one say about it

outside of definition, not negotiable

for this is the path of the divine,

part word, part syllabic chant count.

The team of translators complete

with process and method, the Wittenberg team,

refraining from literal in Hebrew:

We departed freely from the letter,

differing from the rabbis.

Whoever would speak German

must ask, What would the German say

in this situation? Everything turns

on a very few words.

Put a readable Bible in the people's hands and get back.

Psalms walking out of Viet Nam

with Thich Nhat Hanh,

here to be present to the walk.

Have a cookie. Don't burn your fingers.

Not a word more to say.

Two weeks of listening to politicians

shaping the electorate amidst the cries

of grieving mothers and fathers,

walk with the fallen.

Pinche pendejos.

My friends read only Chinese poets

from the past. The poems

and those who translate them.

I read them too.

This has been going on, my countrymen,

for quite some time.

Jim Bodeen

30 July-2 August 2016

THE STEPS WE TAKE

Cleaning house with Karen is a walk

that looks so good on the page

and sounds so strong. Talking about it

and how it figures into our love

is a rest stop. How it is now and then

at the same time. There is only now

we say, recognizing the idea, adding,

the past walks with us. A bird

calls from the roof. One persistent

repetitive To Weet. To Weet,

beginning low and rising. Two syllables.

Roof top call out, shortened now

to one syllable. Medium range.

Weet, Weet. Weet, Weet.

We have been shaking out these rugs

for half a century, each of us

with some things, well some things.

Things look pretty good on the walk through.

I open the notebook with intentions

for reviewing yesterday's reading.

Tolstoy in old age encounters the tartar thistle.

The A.N. Wilson biography shocks me on every page.

Karen peeks her head out the screen door,

I'm leaving, heading for breakfast with friends.

Jim Bodeen

21 July 2016

WALKING THE CAR

After pruning trees, the neighbor

asks about the rose, and we cut

cross growing branches

looking at purple shoots

coming from the bottom--

We want to encourage these.

Before leaving for lunch with Karen

at El Rey, I load six Live albums

of Van Morrison, five times

It's Too Late to Stop Now--

it's 1973 forever, all through town,

bring it to me. We turn on to 6th Street

before Nob Hill. The letter I wrote

my pastor before moving into the trees,

accompanies me, too. How to evaluate

those on Earth ordained by God?

How trees calm us. Here and now.

Hear, hear. Karen orders Sope and Taco

with rice and beans and a Coke.

I have fish tacos. Back at the river

Van's mouth becomes a piano.

We squeeze limes together

and I get all the sliced radish.

Karen thinks the cut into 6th Street

came when they built Farm Workers Clinic,

but doesn't remember the year.

We turn onto Nob Hill to access

the parking lot at Fiesta Foods on Fair.

Outside the store they're selling

papaya and mango. Fiesta Foods

helps me relax, mercado en México,

and I weigh peanuts on the scale.

Karen asks what I'm going to do

with a dozen pasillas, dark green poblano

of my dream vision, Why, roast them

on the grill and peel the skin with a fork.

I like to slice them building my taco.

I don't put my face in the cilantro

but would if we were alone.

When Van sings Brown-Eyed Girl

the year changes. It's the summer of 67

and we're in Seattle, Karen's Chevy II,

it's July and we have the entire month.

I'm 22. Between Panama and Vietnam

with Karen and Van's Brown-Eyed Girl,

and the Chevy II is all music and green.

Jim Bodeen

15 July 2016

AT THE ATHLETIC CLUB

AFTER A MORNING

EDITING THE LIFE OF AN ARTIST-PASTOR

Before the listening trees

Digital images greening

Old men in blossom

Stretching out the leg

pen in hand for balance

the man can switch legs       

but can't put the pen

in his right hand

Jim Bodeen

11 July 2016

WALKING THE TREADMILL

AT THE ATHLETIC CLUB,

EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO GO HOME

"I've hung my hat on a cliff".

            Li Po, A Summer Day on the Mountain

But I'm on a treadmill at the Athletic Club--

leisurely walk, reading Li Po,

just about above tree line

when a man steps towards

the woman walking beside me

watching Fox News on her tv screen,

Learning anything?

There's been another shooting.

The man wanted small talk

but the woman stayed with the killings,

The time, a Michigan jail,

a trigger for the man,

My brother was shot

25 years ago--25 years ago?--

the man next to him interrupts--

my son was killed 25 years ago

on the 20th of this month.

Shot in the back. Somewhere

in here, Li Po talks to me,

A clear wind opens pure emptiness,

and I write his words

in the front of the book,

The men are talk to each other,

ignoring the woman, ignoring me, too.

Shot in the back.

The men taking turns.

We were ten years apart.

Really close. He got out

After 5 lousy years.

I was supposed to get restitution,

and got one check for 14 cents.

In the mail, no less.

I'd love to turn on the electric chair,

or hang him. Hang them

in the first 24 hours.

They even gave him his knife back.

I stay with Li Po.

Keep reading. Keep walking.

Take it in, let it out.

Like that, over and over.

Jim Bodeen

12 July 2016