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