The Word Is Just, La Palabra Es Justo

 

THE WORD IS JUST, LA PALABRA ES JUSTO

 

…it is fitting for the upright to praise him[1]           

…es propio de los integros alabar al Señor[2]

…right living people sound best when praising[3]

…to the straightforward, praise is becoming[4]

…for praise is comely for the upright[5]

           --Psalm 33/Salmo 33

 

I take my temperature on the 33d Psalm.

With the 33d Psalm I live out my days.

 

I haven't gotten off to a very good start today.

It's early. That's not lost on me either.

 

Cool jazz, easy on the ear, isn't me.

I'm slide trombone, slurred, full of spit,

 

in between every position.

Caballero andante, cruzando las fronteras.

 

I have used flattery and been found out.

I stand guilty before my friends

 

and hide my eyes from my companion,

suspicious of myself before the beloved.

 

I am a beggar for the unguarded word.

Soy buscador, navegador armado en quijotescos.

 

Escudriñado de nada, chulo de diccionarios.

Como me dije, este día sería largo.

 

I am useless, there is nothing I can do.

The 33d Psalm is the breath-gift praising God.

 

Jim Bodeen

28 September 2020

---

[1] New International Version

[2] Nueva Versión Internacional

[3] Eugene H. Peterson

[4] Ellen Davis

[5] King James Version

RAZOR CLAMS IN MOONLIGHT

 

 

Poet and novelist Bill Ransom takes dry landers from Eastern Washington State on a moonlit Razor Clam dig at Grayland, Washington, Pacific Coast. September 21-22, 2020.

DIGGING RAZOR CLAMS IN MOONLIGHT

 

            For Bill Ransom, Magaly Solis,

            Laura Armstrong & Karen Bodeen

 

After a wedding, this walk on the beach,

But not before a tutorial. Bill says, This

Is a clam gun, the one that looks like a shovel.

This is an aluminum tube, and this, same thing, plastic—

 

And this is the Pacific Ocean. Stop

At Grayland Hardware, pick up three-day permits

And text Bill we’re bringing two abrecaminos,

Pathbreakers, from La Casa Hogar,

 

Immigrant rights and citizenship programs,

To the clam dig. Can he help.

Never turn your back on the ocean, Bill says.

Face the ocean when you dig.

 

Fifteen clams is the limit. You must

Take everything, large, small, or broken.

If you hit a shell, pull back, and slurry

The shovel. Magaly is from Guerrero,

 

South of Oaxaca. Laura’s east coast.

Boots, lantern, head lamps.

Rain lets up. Bill shows us

How to walk the beach, look for

 

Sand indentions locating the clams.

We each limit. Bill talks Bolt decision,

Indian Treaty Rights, 1856. Sustainability

And give and take. He shows us how

 

To clean clams, links to Fish and Wildlife

And recipes for cooking. Over breakfast

He talks about jobs a novelist takes

To apprentice for the world. Short order

 

Cook who must eat what he poorly prepares.

Fifty pounds of hash browns, too?

Jack Benny and Bob Harrah.

El Salvador, FMLN, peace treaties.

 

Bill talks noun and verb. I’ve known

His poems as long as I’ve known Bill—

40+ years. His way of engagement

And retreat. His witness and his way

 

In the wild. Since the water pump gave out

In the Toyota going through Yakima.

His cats—Number One and Number Two,

Brothers.  At breakfast, Bill has brought

 

Signed books for Magaly and Laura,

Including Learning the Ropes,

Fires and medicine. Colonial terrorism.

Bill recognizes these two young women.

 

Their work, liberation, is the same work as his.

They’ve taken identical vows.

This is service work, guerilla training.

Low tide at night, under cover,

 

Not 24 hours. Retreat. Renewal.

Wild west coast. Survival training

Not for the resume. Cleaning clams.

Ancestral nurturing, beginnings in sand.

 

Jim Bodeen

21-28 September 2020

FEATHER DROPPING DEFIANCE

 

TINIEST BABY FINCH FEATHER DROPPING

 

Shining with defiance, feather-perfect,

it floats onto my notebook from the Bloodgood,

specimen tree shielding me from the hanging sun

mis-colored by fires from our valley wind-swept

along the entire West Coast. Fire season

 

is a road trip that only begins again

re-burning hotter, non-stop. When was it

101, winding us above the Lighthouse

with our children navigating our way

to the Sea Lion caves? This feather,

 

gold-tipped half the size of my fingernail,

beside the other book, Michael Harper's

African American Poetry, re-opens tiny

wonders. Time-sharpened by another

thousand or so days, wit-wicked be-

 

wildered, watching John Lewis

say, Good Trouble in a movie called

Good Trouble about John Lewis.

He crossed that Pettus Bridge.

All these names, these poets building

 

this time-crossing bridge crossing

time with words, good blood words,

rooted trees, hundreds of years, Harpers

early and late, deep-rooted, these-what

half-breaths, songlines lung-streaming

 

empty only to re-fill what went up

in flames on my mountain, home-

mountain. Psalm-praising, psalm-

cursing, frank as Moses talking God-

talk, God-loving, rewarding, awarding.

 

Jim Bodeen

14-27 September 2020

PRAYING THE PSALMS/REZANDO LOS SALMOS

 

EVEN MY PRAYERS TO YOU, LORD,

     for Kevin Miller

ARE SUBVERSIVe. Yo soy lo más

subversivo de los pecadores. I am,

aún en mis oraciones--rezando

por el poema--praying more

for the poem than a dialogue

with you. Dichoso el hombre

que no sigue los poetas.

I am blessed by the songs,

black church gospel

interrupting my bullshit,

mi paja, porque tu sabes

que yo anda en mi derrota y rumbo--

and in the Black Church

you have given me surround

sound, Ray Charles

and honey in the rock.

Margin-walking I always ask,

How do you say bullshit

in your village?

Has llenado mi copa a rebosar.

Sandeces, locura. Paja.

I shall not be moved.

We sing without knowing.

My notebook is a singing gospel

shouting, cantando,

plantado a la orilla de un rio.

In the poems of Michael Harper

I am reborn in a blue mask.

Even so, Lord, you listen

a mis delirios quijotescos.

You understand me

en mi prosperidad--

my riches and prosperity.

 

Jim Bodeen

17 September 2020

 

It's Difficult to say, Smoked in

IT'S DIFFICULT TO SAY, SMOKED IN

 

At Yakima airport behind chain

linked fence, tarmac close

waiting for Deportation Flight,

the mind wants to call this conflagration

fog. I write fog in the notebook

crossing out the word.

Smoke obscures the airport.

I'm masked up.

My glasses fog.

Everything is either fog or smoke.

There's a new fire on White Pass.

My mountain.

I stand outside the tarmac.

I've brought a psalter

and read Psalm 5,

translated by Eugene Peterson,

Every morning you'll hear me at it again.

This is the 80th ICE flight

out of Yakima since 20 May 2019.

God must have picked this psalm for me

and smiled where I ask him to pay attention.

 

Jim Bodeen

15 September 2020

POST CARD TO PROFESSOR EDDIE S. GLAUDE, JR. FROM YAKIMA

 

BEGIN AGAIN, HE SAYS, IN THE AFTER TIME

                Begin Again: James Baldwin's America

              And Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own

                           --Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

 

Backward letters on a shower curtain

tells a story about asylum seekers,

scheduled deportation flights,

No Están Solo, no you're not--

No We're Not. Here's a post card

poem written to a Poetry Pole,

hand-stamped at the post office,

Professor Glaude, grateful for your all,

how much do I love what you say

about Coltrane's Pursuance,

your insight a sustaining epiphany.

A love supreme. Racial philanthropists,

Ouch! No name connecting

with Emerson. But what

a way to Whitman! The After Times.

Your walk to the abyss

into yourself. Your Dad,

thanks again, road trip

in and out of Montgomery.

Lucky students facing courage.

Highway 65. Jimmy was right.

The evasion, the evasion.

This note before ICE flight

witness, Yakima, 60 minutes.

 

Jim Bodeen

31 July--8 September 2020

CONSEQUENCES

 

CONSEQUENCES

 

Setting out to write

you about the book

you sent me

by Isabel Wilkerson

on Caste

and discontent

and I underlined

some things on page 306

telomeres

cell damage

from exposure

to social

inequity

weathering

writing this

in the margins

of the book

I sat down

to write it out

and that's how

this poem

about your hand-made

earings for Karen

emerged

and I do want

to say how

delighted

we are

I guess

this skinny poem

is a book mark

 

jim

3-8 september 2020

"YOU'RE ASKING ME TO BELIEVE THEY'RE NOT CRIMINALS?" THE BICYCLIST ASKS

 "I'LL BE DARNED!"

"What are you spying on?"

 

The bicyclist asks, wheeling

his Folding City Mult-Speed bike

into the parking lot outside

the chain link fence

at Yakima Air Terminal

where six people from

Yakima Immigration Response Network

photograph, count, observe

asylum seekers being deported

to their countries of origin.

 

"They're illegals,

but they're not all criminals?

You're trying to tell me that?

I'll be darned.

You're asking me to believe

they're not criminals."
 

"I'll be darned."

 

"They're getting them ready

to fly them out where ever."

 

"Huh. I'll be darned."

 

The bicyclist asks his questions

over and over, first of one,

then of the other, two women

from Immigration Response

answer his questions. They're

a local grassroots organization

supporting immigrant communities,

providing resources and training.

 

"You're asking me to believe

they just work here

and they're not criminals.

I'll be darned."

 

"I live in a place like this place.

No two ways about it--most

of them are illegal.

I'm from Central Illinois.

I mean they'll do the work

where nobody else will do it."

 

"Are you guys involved

with the homeless? I thought

we had homeless, but we can't

hold a candle to Yakima.

But you guys actually believe

these guys aren't criminals."

 

Jim Bodeen\

1 September--6 September 2020