All You Gotta Do Is Ring The Bell

GRANDCHILDREN'S VOLLEYBALL

Driving dreaming tribal lands

into strand-songs with Machi's map

my grand daughter wears number 44

All of this after pruning

Little Cherry Twist from the inside

delighting in the opening

a porch room opens for light

before leaves fall

            Karen raises her camera

to take a photo of her daughter's

daughter who sees her waving

her off no photos before this

a post office run--mail stop

two post cards witnessing

waving between chain link

fences and detainees

boarding for deportation

a cloth painted sign cards

stamped each with a different

commemorative

                        TWO CARDS

with the same poem honoring

eyes alerting a nation

weighed sanctity weighted

joy before warming blankets

soothing medicine in five cards

a kind of hand-stamped potlatch

one-of-a-kind originals

fragile, resilient

                        like these junior

high school girls rough

beautiful songs tough enough

on a bus ride representing

all of them looking like the world

before the world one I know

looking like the ones

boarding the plane in chains

Jim Bodeen

9-18 October 2019