What's the snow report?

NEWS

This morning I read an obituary

of a woman who skied off Mt. Adams,

Pahtoo, Old One Standing There,

she was Queen of the Rodeo,

Stanford, and a language teacher

where I worked thirty years.

She taught Spanish and English,

skied until she was 85. Last night

In bed I reached for a book of poems

by Jim Harrison, Dead Man's Float,

poems about getting old that give you

tooth ache drinking a Coke.

I get mad at myself and can't sleep.

I see where I wrote the day I got the book.

This morning while Karen

reads the paper drinking coffee,

I'm reading his poems.

Harrison's all these different ages.

He's 74 and can't believe it.

He's 7 wondering who he was.

His poems on the bedstead gathering dust,

poems full of Lorca and Machado.

It pisses me off. Forgetting like this.

I paid a taxi in Granada

to take me where they murdered Lorca.

When I find Americans who don't know

his essay on Duende I buy it for them,

that sweet New Directions copy

with poems and Cante Jondo.

What have I done for Harrison?

That woman who skied

off Pahtoo, she climbed Mt. Rainier twice.

She's out of my league. I'm 73,

writing in a notebook.

Her accomplishments make me think

of my failures. She marched with MLK.

I never knew her, never heard her name.
Dark sounds, Lorca, Dark. Dark.

Jim Bodeen

16 November 2018