Meng Hao-jan at High Camp

SITTING WITH MENG HAO-JAN

AT HIGH CAMP SHARING FIRST

MOUNTAIN LUNCH OF SOLSTICE WEEK

"...perfecting that deathless way"

            Meng Hao-jan

wandering in your poems, Meng,

I've brought pickled herring in onions,

common bowl, sandwiches of fresh ground

peanut butter and wild clover honey. Crackers

for the herring, two oranges, an apple.

Instead of high mountain green tea

I've brought micro ground coffee

for your pleasure. You can name it

while we shell peanuts, peel oranges

releasing pungent juices into our High Camp

Temple, opening our nostrils. Sky clearing,

temperature warming, bad for snow

and if rain comes, we'll stay inside,

read your poems, laugh at the President's

trouble with concubines in the Capitol.

Oh my! The sun just broke through on Mt. Rainier!

This is break-out day. New ski boots

for old feet. Last year's muscles, practicing

packing books and keeping them dry.

I need a new case for eye glasses, will bring

another cup from home to drink from.

When I come off the mountain, I'll write

to the Viet Nam vet, New Orleans

Bayou guide, who showed us alligators

when we went looking for British Petroleum

violations. Nostalgia for polluters

in the Capitol? Let's walk out

and see if Old Snowy opens from clouds.

Jim Bodeen

17 December 2018

*

Children get up early, cook noodles for lunch at High Camp. Winter snow dreaming. Five years from Sandy Hook. That winter, too, found us in mountains. Those cries reached us because of another fall. What shall we do? we asked ourselves. Cloth-Goddess Mother Quilt makes a child’s vest from Chief Joseph Blanket. Twice that now, these children, our children, snow-bound.