BATIK LITERATE

THE MOVEMENT AND THE MOVING

Moving closer to the trees, then,

for intimacy, ok, comrades,

and camaraderie.  Photographing

notebook pages getting closer

to myself. Even the salad,

a rainbow of fruits. Beets,

my favorite. That tiny piece

of salmon, almost un-noticed.

Karen's eyes, batik literate,

reads where wax was

before dye. Chicken blood

colors cloths. Maybe taboo

enters at this point. Why

men do certain things.

Why that blue and yellow plate.

How the palette blade works.

the Oh! of primary colors.

Banana pulp, fermenting casavas,

the screening of evil into fabric.

All in front of me, before my eyes.

Sudden moments sudden

like that. Like that.

Gift of the yellow flower

matching the hat

from the national park.

Who wouldn't button-hole that

to make him more of a him

if a him is who he is

in the up-to-you-of-it-all.
Another picture with Karen

in front of the river. That one.

Writing those post cards

to kids coming out. Like they know

the code of the poem

before it arrives. Spanish verbs,

picnic tables, Bible on a painted

table blistering. Like this. Beginning

beginners. We work the poems,

we carry notebooks. We know

our IPhones are political cameras.

We are recording devices as well.

A person gives birth.

Sex is our science.

For a long time we thought

the binary system was only destroyed

in ancient Chinese poems. Ha to that,

as I nod. Good bye pork pie hat

subversive night train tracking

good and evil, night and stay,

day and night. Winding a string

into a ring for the color of it.

An allied guide to term limits.

Timed, untrodden terminology

emerging. Siblings in Christ,

not brothers and sisters, Oh!

how I'll hate to lose that one,

Dearly Beloved. The critical statistic,

boys. Look what happens

when you go to school.

Help! Help! Help

in getting across. Over.

Portage itself. Rope of elk-skin

and old man walking.

Walking! Accompanied

on the best route. The grass

and the barge. The Columbia River

on a solitary Sunday afternoon.

This is the harvest at Celilo Falls.

The 10,000 things as years.

Seminal image. Financier.

Misspell a word because you heard

it the way you heard it, everything

in its tumblingness

in the rivering.

Jim Bodeen

June 2-4, 2018