THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE

THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE

Cold this morning at 28 degrees.

I. Psalm 84 / Salmo 84

¡Cuán hermosas son tus moradas,

Señor Todopoderoso!

The absence of a roof

brings sunlight closer to us

on the asphalt

repopulated communities

remove their uniforms

Anhelo con el alma los atrios del Señor

casi agonizo por estar en ellos.

My soul yearns, even faints,

for the courts of the Lord.

It is said, ellos se dicen, que

tu no dejan nosotros huérfanos,

that we will always be yours.

II.A. HAPPY ARE THEY WHO DWELL IN YOUR HOUSE

    B. Barry Lopez: I can't teach you hunger, and I can't teach you discipline

           

Post Card for Barry Lopez

All those nights in the coldest places

furthest one away

that sleeping bag

not more crucial than the notebook

shaped by desire and hunger

I've looked for fathers in my life

and know some of what that's about

Dad visits me from time to time in dreams

I looked up so many words

the overlook of your horizon courier

photographs blowing from your motorcycle

and the eschatological moment

of commitment

Generosity of saying

others can do this and I can do this

this too is real food my tent

kernel on the shelf where you remember

these framed stamps of Walt Whitman

The geologist telling you

how a stone and a rock

are different and your love

of telling it on yourself

even as you tell it on others

It didn’t occur to me

that taking life so seriously

might cause a loss of perspective

It's so breathtaking

for a boy from rural

North Dakota approaching

others I can see them bracing

Thanks so much Oh!

and our time here the same time

you born three days after my wife

the ways we share 1968

III. A. Even the sparrow has found a home,

and the swallow a nest for herself

       B. Muriel Rukeyser: The word in the work makes me.

The Painted Yellow Rectangle can be seen by all.

The one who sees, and the one who hears.

Each has responsibility. Step inside the Free Speech Zone

where the poem stands against the algorithm.

IV. A.  DICHOSO EL QUE TIENE EN TI SU FORTALEZA,

que sólo piensa en recorrer tus sendas

       B. Jody Aliesan: I would rather be wrong than false.

Didn't they know what they were doing

when they tucked ICE in this strip mall behind a McDonald's.

Put these young people with some Spanish

from somewhere to take monthly attendance

on those picked up by uniformed agents.

M's been here four times now.

Once a month. Costs he and his wife

200 bucks a trip. Almost late yesterday.

Called me saying, Our car couldn't make it

up the hill, Tuvimos comprar otro carro

por dos cientos dolares y bateria nuevo

por llegar. White guy in black t-shirt

all tatted up checks M in. Por que tiene

tantos números de telefono? One tat

running up his right arm of the American flag

the other one REDEEMED BY HEAVEN

in bold black seraph type, wrist to elbow,

beard out of the 19th Century.

A whistler, he whistles,

Whistle while you work.

Words on walls: Removal, Intensive Appearance.

Always questions, and always a question,

Offices filled with shelves from Home Depot

and cleaning supplies. Looks like a laundry room.

No tengo fecha ni día, M says, troubled.

Don't ask them where they got the money.

The name of the church group

helping them, Lights of Larson.

Go figure.

V.  A. Cuando pasa por el valle de las Lágrimas

lo connvierte en región de manantiales

      B. Rudolf Bultmann

Calling Certainty the great sin

of the 20th Century, and those empty pews

in Germany. They're empty here, too,

in the ones you stood with.

VI. A. Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty,

Listen to me, O God of Jacob

     

     B. Fyodor Dostoevsky

They woke him at 4 am.

Christ over truth and more perfect.

Access and indifference to the camps.

Even if, Christ over truth, because of

perfect clarity, the beauty of it.

After they took the blindfolds off

you, the next in line,

like in a Bob Dylan song, redeemed,

American song with children

singing the refrigerator song.

 VII. A.  Prefiero cuidar la entrada de la casa de mi Dios

Que habitar entre los impíos

He knew the language of the barrio.

Neither priest nor pastor trusted him.

VIII. A. Better is one day in your courts

Than a thousand elsewhere

     B. Justo González: ¿Por qué cree usted que Pablo coloca estas palabras

     en medio de una epístola sobre el gozo?

Poets scattered.

They opted for paying attention.

Not ones of the lesser lights.

Not at all.

They paid dearly.

Before anything else,

heaven is sky.

And everything incomplete on the ground,

recovered, composted.

Composed?

No, not that.

     C. Jon Sobrino

Yo no sé

de dónde,

pero no está

en el emperio.

VIII.A.  Gary Snyder

Listening to an earlier reading on YouTube,

a younger Snyder talking with Lew Welch,

one of ours who disappeared,

Welch relating what rocks said about trees.

What's that?                                                                                

They were just passing through.

Jim Bodeen

14 February--25 March 2020