EEL RIVER SUISEKI HAIKU

LENA'S SUISEKI STONES

Lena collected the smallest stones.

Stones she brought from the beach

could be cupped in your hand,

landscapes of the way she lived. 

She put them in a dish

on the coffee table as immaculate

as her living room where she read.

My day on the river is complete,

stones loaded in my pack

for the hike up the trail, Lena's

tiny stones in my shirt pocket.

Jim Bodeen

18 September--23 September 2016

Eel River--Yakima

FOUR DAYS ON THE EEL RIVER WITH STONES

We who know we're fastened

to the poem, know something

of our approximation.

Carrying War & Peace since midsummer

the book became as intimate as the wallet

in my back pocket. Book worn well, weathered,

scratching a surface I hadn't known.

I came here to be with these stones,

to see them in their water.

They showed themselves to me,

and for this I am grateful.

Eel River Suiseki. I came to like

the ones scratched with travel,

the ones in calligraphy, like an ancient

Chinese poem I couldn't translate.

Something like the way the paper cover

of War and Peace turned to something like leather.

Kawa Doja is the classroom of the riverbank.

It surprises me how much the riverbank speaks

in the voice of all my teachers, like I am

surrounded by Sensei from then and now.

As I become familiar, not native,

I discover that I have been given

certain permissions. I am granted invitations

to enter the river and bathe. Stones

are given to me, with instructions

that they are to become part of the gift,

that they must always move, that their patina

will surface over time, with water,

with sunshine, and with love.

And then, as if to correct me

for trying to do everything right, to be perfect,

(Imagine that, in me!), the stones come up

the trail in my pack, where I perform

a first cleaning, and they sit with me

as I finish the great story of Tolstoy.

The book has become a kind of diary,

and I find myself taking notes

in the margins, jotting fragments

of my imagination as they cross

my field of vision. And then,

all my fretting over the daiza

and my literal concern for display

came to the fore, as I sat with book and stone

before the campfire in the lawn chair.

The worn cover with the soft pages

presented themselves with the stones,

drying but still damp. Pierre, in his tears,

listening to Karataev, Natasha wiping the brow

of Andrei, still separate from each other,

and Moscow, the mother of all cities, empty.

These pages offer themselves.

Perhaps I may be excused for beginning a poem,

or a prayer, this effort at gratefulness,

by starting with War and Peace.

Unforgivable entrance! But how else

to explain how Pierre came to hear Karataev say,

Lord, lay me down like a stone, lift me up like a loaf.

Or to be called by him, Little Falcon?

As Pierre noted, he knew nothing

by heart except prayer.

Stone, book, story, all of it gathered

before me in the lawn chair by the fire.

I set the still-drying stone on the page,

a perfect tray, and the page absorbs

the water as will someday, the stone.

It will take me longer than that to understand

all that is going on, all that happens

on the riverbank, kawa doja.

This is what I carry now, breaking camp.

Jim Bodeen

18 September 2016

Camp Redwood 

THE QUILT AND THE STONE

She was looking for the river light,

quilting. She was making water out of cloth.

Thread brought everything to the surface.

Her vision fish came from the Japanese Garden

in the West Coast city. He was in the river

uncovering stones, lifting them.

As different as they were,

they were after the same thing,

meditation in the image,

dream impressions from the visible world.

Our oldest ancestor, a proton-powered rock.

What comes from watching NOVA on TV.

The last common ancestor of all life

was not a free-living cell at all,

but a porous rock riddled with bubbly

iron-sulfur membranes that catalyzed

primordial biochemical reactions.

Powered by hydrogen and proton gradients,

this natural flow reactor filled up with organic

chemicals, giving rise to proto-life

that eventually broke out as the first living cells.

It reveals itself in cloth, as fish.

It is the God-science of the poem.

Jim Bodeen

Fall Equinox, 2016

FROM THE COAST, DRIVING INTO RIVER COUNTRY

After dinner, reading in lawn chairs,

the smell of campfire behind us

Oregon State Park named after

a newspaperman, William Tugman

In a grove of trees

with Karen at dusk,

Tolstoy empties Moscow

while Napoleon thinks

magnanimous thoughts

Donald Trump approaches

the gates of Moscow

only a picture of Putin

no queen bee

bookseller with no inventory,

a book jacket in blue jeans

Light storms in waves

Color for Karen's landscape quilts

Oregon coast sand

Waking in trees

keeping us from highway winds

Mothership in deep cover

Tolstoy explores the empty hive

as Donald Trump remembers

whispered praise from Putin

Moscow is the sacred mother

wandering among wounded soldiers

Tolstoy and Whitman

Fine line markers

12 vibrant colors

Sharp tips for details

And a breakfast prayer

from Thich Nhat Hanh's

How to Love

Karen says she recorded

my breathing last night.

I look at her over my Cream of Wheat,

concerned, then ask about it--

full wonder, How beautiful

to have her listening to my breath

while sleeping. Mothership bed

brings us closer

Finishing her cereal, Karen finds

another piece of bacon

under the paper towel

Sitting in camp chair

while Karen showers

Fabric washes her body

in arcs of color

This is where the Eel River meets the sea

I walk the river walk

without accessing the water

No stones here

This Suiseki mecca river

has me counting syllables at 3 am

"Don't bet against the meatball"

Full-blossomed tartar thistle

Pink curves cut against the blade

Jim Bodeen

Mid-September, 2016

THE ODDNESS OF ONE

Almost bedtime now, and not.

So unusual, and strange.

To be here with Karen

and to be without her.

Sitting in lawn chair

so I won't have to crawl up

and be alone. I've been alone

in the Mothership before.

I've been alone in our 52 years.

But we've been together

for 852 miles, and she's not here.

Karen's not here.

Jim Bodeen
14 Sept 2016

Eel River Haiku

Mouth of the Eel

Kawa Dojo

Classroom of the ancients

No time for Tolstoy

Here comes Karen

moving into river country

Stop counting syllables

Enter into relationship with stone

Ancestors know you're on the way

Oh, my God

How did that happen

This color in Karen's cheek!

Daily river wonder walk

Yogurt with Karen in the Mothership

Cloth weaving river

Sunset river walk

homeless man on bicycle

Quiet time with my teacher

I had nothing to say

I was living in my head

Foolish foolish man

Let me serve you breakfast

she says smiling haiku girl

Don't get greedy with the poem

Jim Bodeen

Mouth of the Eel River
Fortuna, Ca
14 September 2016