LETTER TO GLENN JORDAN AT THE CROOKED SHORE

LETTER TO GLENN JORDAN, PUBLIC THEOLOGIAN,

FROM THE FRONT PORCH TO THE PITCH AT MY GRANDDAUGHTER’S

SATURDAY MORNING SOCCER GAME

            …You don’t know what I believe.

            Glenn Jordan

Deciding response, heart-remains. Crux of it all.

Cold, looking into the sun, flipping pages from Kavanagh,

it’s not only the bank saying, No wind; 12-year old girls

wear uniforms, look sharp, and last night, last light,

wind blowing the ref’s whistle. Would that his whistle

would end this. I’m open to every idea that fits into the regime.

Oh, leading editor, sing us into The Christmas Murmurs.

This Saturday morning, Glenn Jordan, your take

on David’s grandmother Ruth, re-opens the Bible.

Thank you for this, for your love of Springsteen, nodding

to all singers who call their mothers daily, any

who buy Mom a used car or bus. I carry my notes

and listen to your voice. Chance brings me here,

granted access from the notebook’s privilege,

a border crossing with savage gods.

A young English novelist moves his family to Ireland

to learn to live like Kavanagh. To write,

My purpose in life was to have no purpose.

Paul Kingsnorth’s working definition for words,

that might carry us through the abyss. My friend

Barry brings them, a poet. The two of us sit

on the front porch, books read and underlined,

Barry goes first: this business of silence, its purpose—

Just shut up. True self, unconscious mind, sentence itself.

Working back, way back, as Van sings.

Barry and I—44 years of these mornings. Sacred

Hoops. Each stop in Kingsnorth, a river stone

for crossing water. Water and fire. Crossing back.

Words in triage. Savage gods. Kavanagh and Yeats

coming into our talk with Joyce  Silence. Exile. Cunning.

What we share. Clay is the word and clay is the flesh.

I tell Barry about Glenn Jordan at Holden. Morning after

all-night read of The Sacred Hunger. Patrick Maguire.  

He could not walk the easy road to destiny.

Not just potatoes. Gratified desire. Courage.

And he knows that his own heart is calling his mother a liar.

Watching wrecking balls take out respectability from doorways.

…post dated cheque of the Holy Ghost, Patrick Kavanagh—

Have you read him? You ask. Glenn Jordan and Paul Kingsnorth

cross on my front porch. Psalter in a man’s hand

coming up the walk. Ruth crossing with her mother-in-law.

How things happen, just being here.

It’s a crooked shore, here, too. God of lost photos,

You led me to Judith’s door. For the lost ones restored

In your love, is not my call, or mine to know.

You grant me permission to continue walking.

Cheering these girls from the sidelines,

may there be sufficient Green Cards for all.

Jim Bodeen

28-30 September 2019