Iwakura Dedication

IWAKURA DEDICATION

            

         for Craig Johnson

He discovers the rope end,

this farmer-sailor, one day

when land-bound, he sits

on his tractor. No one

asks about his sailboat,

but this same day,

the man in the desert

calls him for a rope

looking for one

with heft and diameter

that he might wrap

around a stone

for ceremonial purposes.

Unearthing the rope

the farmer thinks its age

a disqualifier. It is the rope

the gardener in the desert

has been looking for.

Stone patience never wavered

waiting  for the rope's arrival.

            Jim

            29 June 2019

BUCKLING HER NECKLACE

GARDEN MORNING

After stone setting, after morning

meditation on beauty, after reading

Francisco Goldman's Ordinary Seaman,

a plane overhead, small one, single engine,

Karen calls me into bathroom

to buckle her necklace

and I say I'm supposed to kiss your neck

and interrupt your day

                                    when

I kiss her neck, she turns

to kiss me all puckered up fresh

lipstick wet drying on my lips

drawing me two ways at once

            I was rubbing a stone

when I sat down in the garden chair

I had to put it down to write

what was coming up deep down

things, Karen's inner life, interrupting

the brushing of my teeth, mother

of the child with spinal bifida

on Facebook, baby taken off Medicare/

Medicaid because he's been in hospital

30 days--that's it, Buster--from now on

all expenses, KChing, KChing, Mom,

How does one write that poem?

I've been in the garden all day,

I've been kissing Karen on the neck

buckling her necklace, while she's

sewing tubies, fabric belts

of soft cotton flannel with giraffes

and foxes tan and brown, belts

over the baby's skin to keep tubes

coming from belly button

or stomach somehow, that's not

exactly accurate, it's messy lipstick

love, the child, the child, a fabric belt

with flaps and tunnels, guiding

and securing tubes. Earlier

this day, Karen shows me a video

of the baby, struggling to roll over

on his tummy, Oh! he'll get there,

he'll get there, he wants

to make it, to get there, so bad!

Can he laugh? I ask. He can smile,

she says. I come out from the bathroom

naked, shaken. I can't imagine

Karen in her sewing meditation,

what it feels like, for her, for this child

she knows through this soft belt

threading itself in her fingers,

me so all alone in a book,

a book too, of wonders,

in the garden, a garden day.

Jim Bodeen

14-28 June 2019

Cherries for Robert Sund

CHERRIES FOR ROBERT SUND

            --for Michael, Bob, Bo, Rick, Tim

Early Robins and Tietons.

Early Robins are savor-blasts promising Rainiers in days--

kissing cousins, and the Tieton is first two-bite cherry.

I took out freeze-dried to fit them into the bear cannister

for this hike up your river. The pit in my mouth

is for remembrance. I bring them from Johnson's Orchards,

you might have eaten their apples, but not these cherries.

100+ years of Scandinavian roots. Where I pick,

bringing these for you, through friends at Shi Shi

who come here each year to sit with you,

hear you laugh with head thrown back on that boxcar.

I'm here at my own invitation.

Yesterday, over coffee, Barry says,

If I would have had Bunch Grass 20 years

earlier, it would have speeded up the process.

Barry keeps River House on the Yakima.

We both keep 12 x 12 shacks. I'm bringing

news with these cherries. Why I invited myself.

Your dry land farming poems. I was a boy

among dry land farmers in North Dakota.

My dad ran Farmer's Union grain elevator,

taught me to chew wheat into gum,

slide in flax-filled boxcars. Grew up

waking to train whistles. My people

were part of threshing crews

before combines went corporate.

A shirt-tail relative bought out

everybody and died of a heart attack.

Before he dies he tells a Mexican

knocking on his door, I'm supposed

to hire you at 15 dollars an hour

to run a half-million dollar machine?

Showing me his equipment barn

I turn and ask, What's that?

That? he says. That's a tractor.

Here's news from Yakima. Last week

five people are gunned down in White Swan

at the end of Medicine Lake Road on the Reservation.

All suspects in custody. Here's another

White Swan story: One of my Mexican

God-children, studying at the UW gets married

last week. Young Yakama woman

comes up to him at picnic table, laughing.

How do you know Francisco?

We box together for UDub.

I'm from White Swan, a senior,

graduating next week in physics.

Cisco Kid is my buddy.

Missing indigenous women

finally get some attention.

Susan Libby Marable, home-made star tattoo

on web of left hand between thumb

and fore-finger, went missing in '91.

After her rapist is sentenced last week,

her family asks, Where's Susan?

Where are the others?

Department of Natural Resources declares

High Fire Danger in the County.

We used to say, backpacking,

We always have fires.

This is my fire report.

A couple of things about your poems.

Home, for Tim McNulty. Prayer. World.

As is. River voice wild. Stone-inscripted.

Great ones divining the invitation.

The divine might be among us

but the design comes from human meditation.

Down on Earth. Where we are

in a small town. Unguarded.

How difficult that is,

Song-of-nothing-held-back.

I'm in garden space, myself, Robert Sund,

on my way to yours. Michael connecting us

through railroad song, hobo jungle jingle,

another Bo, looking forward to hugging Finn,

meeting Bob, passing around cherries

and wild river stamps. Oh, and Jody.

Don't know if you knew her,

She's true north, from your parts.

Jim

2010 House
One week before Summer Solstice, 2019

Reading and Listening to Robert Sund in the Cascade Mountains

"The Dreaming I do is beyond me." Robert Sund

June Berries and the Quilt

WE'LL SEE

Karen returns from walking

the neighborhood. Our modest development

with its yard sale. It's Saturday.

I'm picking June berries, asking robins

for just enough berries to put on a bowl

of vanilla ice cream tonight. Karen

says her niece has several

hand-made baby quilts for sale.

We used to pick June Berries

in North Dakota. Tasker's Coulee.

I never knew who Tasker was.

That's how I know about coulees.

Us kids, we ran up and down

animal trails. Our mom's carried

kettles from the kitchen picking berries.

Did you see your quilt on the lawn?

No, but I didn't look that closely.

Well, she's the one in our family

who knows how to clean house.

That's why you sew that story block

on the back. June Berries grew wild

in Dakotas and Canada.

Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara,

Three Federated Tribes prized

theses berries. Trees sold now

in upscale nurseries for white blossoms,

reading Serviceberry. Two things

going on here, as I see it.

Those nurseries selling trees

not knowing their histories--

June berry's sweeter than blueberry--

and my niece with those quilts

on her sale rack. I have a ball game

to get to. My grandson plays at noon.

I don't have enough berries in this bowl.

Not for a single scoop. No clock

in baseball and robins have put out the word.

Jim Bodeen

8 June 2019

Songs for Your Bicycle Ride

SONGS FOR YOUR BICYCLE RIDE

THROUGH THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Billy Holiday and Nina Simone

Jim Bodeen

14 June 2019

Longer Days

LONGER DAYS 

My hats lined up on pegs

tell me it's June, show me

where I've been

in my proud life.

Looking up from my books

I can't bear the thought

of covering my head

with any of them.

Jim Bodeen

2 June 2019

June 7th

JUNE 7TH

Oh, Dad.

You're so quiet.

I remember you

in this prayer.

Jim Bodeen

7 June 2019

BALLPARK TRUTH

BALL GAME GETS AWAY

Aluminum seats

Two-legged roams dark hallways

Winds from eight peaks

Jim Bodeen
June, 2019

Somehow and the War

SOMEHOW

I was given to one

and got mixed up

in the other

Old now

just starting

to figure

things out

This notebook

is a companion

to the books

And the war?

The war

never

goes away

Jim Bodeen

31 May 2019

Ways of Remembering Soldiers--Two Poems

MEMORIAL DAY, EARLY MORNING

Song then, and song's sadness,

remembering soldiers. This day.

Remembering what it is to be 20

years old, and in uniform.

Uniform, and trying to get to that,

only that--before the interruptions begin

arriving. But I am out of town,

away from the garden. Outside.

This day peonies open.

This day China Snow's grand

lilac-like cousin-blossoms,

perfumes the yard, each breeze

holding, redolent circling infusion

kept close by surrounding sanctuary

of fence. Secure defence combatting

malodorant munition patriots.

Out of town, away.

My uniform hangs in a closet.

Bark on China Snow peels gold in sunshine,

crinkling like papyrus, rolling up like dollar bills.

Jim Bodeen

27-28 May 2019

CEREMONIAL COMPOSURE

            --for Olivier Knox

Work just about done for the day,

using up scented blossoms of China Snow

sweeping through the garden, energized

by the arrival of redolent, shielding me

from maloderant, first appearing

in 1825.  Blossoms offering protection

through the afternoon, while I catch up

from Memorial Day. I wanted to send you

this image of how you're going into my mail,

to only friends, all poets, a couple

of photographers. Oh, and my jeweler,

Marty, the Shield Maker. I'm a vet.

85th Evac Hospital. Qui Nhon.

67-68. We took those casualties.

Did some good time teaching

high school journalism. All best.

Jim

28 May 2019

The Old Man's Heart

WHAT IT IS

It's bad on an old man's heart,

the old man says, watching his son's

son play ball. Ladies in the stands,

mothers, grandmothers, laugh

at him laughing. He sits like this

all day, through both games.

He sat here yesterday, too.

No harm, no harm, he says,

when the boys make a play,

his white hair waving signs,

You boys. You boys, no fear, no fear.

Jim Bodeen

26 May 2019

See it! See it! You own the plate!

BATTLE, BATTLE

Seated on cold aluminum benches

with Katie, granddaughter watching

her cousin, morning sun warms our back.

Kate's black jacket absorbs the heat.

She picks up Han Shan's poems

on my notebook. Let's write a poem,

I say to her, watching Josh at shortstop.

She says, Josh is in the on-deck circle.

Josh is up to bat. Oh, oh.

Hit by a pitch, off his helmet.

The next line is yours, Kate,

Hit the dirt, Josh, Get down, Get down.

Kate asks, How do you do that?

This is how we do it.

Grandpa

25 May 2019

GYPSY TO GYPSY

Gypsy to Gypsy

            for L. A.

Tired of hearing myself talk,

even prayers I say in worship

wear me out. Disgusted others leave.

Then a young woman rescues

Machado chained to a distillery

in slick magazines. She remembered.

Taking tea in this tiny room,

this square inch, I'll remain

as long as she'll have me.

Jim Bodeen

20 May 2019