Welcome Back

WELCOME BACK

When calls began arriving,

men angry and women traumatized,

I found myself first engaged,

then immersed. Sometime later

I knew I had been here before.

Belief within me, the letter

triggers the poem going beyond.

Called out by God or natural forces,

undetected and undetonated

bombs hidden in my brain

exploding. When I recovered,

cleared by modern medicine,

[And the Machi in Chile reading urine],

I was left with no filters.

Some of the blindness mine.

30 years ago. 50 years ago.

The Again and again of it.

That became the journey,

walking into Safeway,

overheard comments in pews.

Arrival of the autocratic state

slides in with a sigh of relief

in the community. You can

hear people say,

from this election: Now

can we have some rest?

Can we just move on? First as question,

repeating itself as imperative,

Just move on, already!

People leaving fingerprints everywhere.

Would I still drink from the common cup?

I remember Christians returning

to the tiny cups in droves

during the height of the Aids epidemic.

Did I have anything in common

with the faithful? I know how you vote.

You've been fingerprinted by your coffee group.

Your doctor files your medical records.

Everyone in the choir knows who's giving blow jobs.

Where did you put your Constitution?

Living the unfiltered life returns.

I recognize it in the young, going active,

for the first time in their lives.

Robert Moses walking through Africa after SNCC.

Start the poetry now. Crazy Horse dressed

in clothes made in China.

            Anyway,

What a word, that. Anyway

you can. Make that way.

Make a way any way you can,

Way Maker.

Jim Bodeen

25 February 2017

Little trees hunker down, 

make oxygen from toxins. 

Breathing naturally, 

their tiny bursts erupt 

already enlightened, 

resisting. Guerillas 

whose root system 

is the youngest part 

of their being.

Jim Bodeen
May Day, 2017