Cowiche Canyon Sunshine

AN INDICATION OF WHAT

THIS MAY ALL BE ABOUT

Burl's Barber Shop before

Cowiche Canyon

hash browns, eggs,

Every day on me,

Wolf's Den Wapato.

Hoagie Roll

with peanut butter

apricot jam in pack,

backed by black bean

burrito and sunshine.

Walking frozen grass

morning image-jammed

feet melting it all down,

winter-frost prints

Hinoki Cypress coffee-

ground fed, what Yeats said.

*

Young people at trail head

motor running in car

while I open hatchback

put on boots, they're

making love just before

lunch time, song from

my car, Cowboy Junkies

Notes Falling Slow

*

Zip parka in sun on rock

Sandwich with John Haines'

early Alaska poems,

Green Man that one

baptized Jesus, Look at him

way he's dressed, put him

under in that icy water

nesting birds watching in trees.

Take out an apple

and notebook, looking up

and down from outcropping

one aluminum can

I missed last week. Voices

coming up trail, I ask

Can you pick up that can,

drop it on rock by trail--

thanks, I'll get it.

Because I'm talking too

I don't tell them

this is a No Talk Zone.

*

Creekside Trail beyond

By-Pass Bridge 11, What's this?

Judy, 83, walked in from Fred Meyers

asking about trail. We walk

a ways. Hiking alone.

Like I am, caution sign.

Black hat, black slacks,

fanny pack, running shoes,

binoculars. Most of my friends

are dead or in old folks homes,

I was in a hiking club

in nature conservancy. She

goes to first outcropping.

We stop and look. This

is as far as you can go,

I say. I'm glad you have

that one trekking pole.

Two are required from this point.

I'll wait here, until you get

to trail head. Give me a shout out.

*

Sun below South Side

Canyon, cold stops ink running

in notebook. Haines also

cold, closed; a caution,

Be careful, getting up.

It's dangerous, this outcropping,

sitting here, afternoon

this long, mid-November

sunshine. You don't know

how stone-dizzy you really are.

You tell yourself, standing,

You're only 30 minutes

from your car. Take that as sign.

Jim Bodeen

19-24 November 2018