SOME OF WHAT THE BRISTLE CONE PINES SAY

INYO NATIONAL FOREST 

OUT OF BISHOP, 168 EAST, 12 MILES

to the turnoff to Bristle Cone Pine Forest,

then another dozen miles to Grand View Park,

where we are now. I say to Karen writing down

fragments, Thanks for this, your notes,

for making this journey too. No power,

no company, no smoke, no fires. And

                                   

                               two nights.

Carrying lots of water, lots of fuel.

Tire pressure checked. Narrow road.

Here, a one-land road. If you think

your horn is going to be heard, Jim.

22 August 2021

Mothership Log 14-A

AMONG THE ANCIENTS: Discovery Trail, Schulman Grove

From Grandview Camp in the Bristle Cone Pine Forest, Karen and Jim Bodeen, from Schulman Ranger Station, walk the Discovery Trail, at dusk, among the oldest living trees in the world as they continue their Storypath/Cuentocamino in the Mothership. Their 53d year of marriage. 22 August 2021.

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This Twisted Light: Among the Ancient Bristle Cone Pines

Walking the Methuselah Trail in the Bristle Cone Pine forest with poets, priests, friends, family, artists and writers. A conversation and an invocation, during the fire season of burning forests, 2021. Part prayer, part homage, a blessingway of grace. Walking and listening, voices emerge with the silence. The near and the far, everything close with the oldest trees in the world.

LISTENING TAKING PLACE

AMONG THE BRISTLE CONE PINE WALK,

THE NEVER-ENDING ONE

 

       That we may laugh and fight and sing

       And of our transience here make offering

                      Edwin Arlington Robinson

 

This twisted light, this walking with the ancients.

Older than Methuselah. This man against the sky.

Out of order. Oh, my people.

Edwin Arlington Robinson. And Lao Tzu.

Robinson, first great modern American poet.

You can quit writing anytime you think you can.

But beautiful. The turnaround walk,

this steady tone poet Robinson,

Walking into a new century

Walk that turns you around

Don’t pretend.

Remember what the ranger said.

My people named. Vance, Barry, Marty, Kevin, Karen,

Krista, Leah, Tim Bodeen, twice,

Bill Ransom, Don King, Mary Oliver,

Navajo Blessingway Singer Frank Mitchell,

Grandchildren, Wes Hanson, David Hinton,

Chuck Bodeen, tree planters in the empty bowl. Lena.

Mom and Dad, Grandma, Grandpa,

Vonnie. Vonnie & Craig.

Vonnie, Craig, Tyler, Brian.

Lee Bassett, Terry, Jane,

Women poets, Dan Peters,

Rob and Jackie, Ron Marshall.

The Christians, Jesus, all blue begonias everywhere,

Pastor Harald Sigmar, Ethel,

Father Stanley Marrow,

Rudolf Bultmann,

Jim Engel, Erica,

Dr. Edmund Schulman and the Schulman Grove,

Pastor Ron Moen, Raymond Carver.

 

Walking the zone of individual difference

This, too is the story of a house of trees in stony soil.

Flammonde doesn’t know where he came from,

And he’s the world on fire.

As far as this, and more, cresting the hill

With questions, that won’t say no,

As if he were the last god going home.

These images stuck early, blessed and blessing,

Walking with friends into the wild

 

Who would and will, show themselves against horizons

Allowing Robinson’s question,

Where is he going, This man against the sky?

And my friends would take pictures,

Photographing all. 

Gary Snyder walking here--not a single footprint.

 

Jim Bodeen

22 August—19 October 2021

 

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 THE PURPLE PINE CONE

“Sunlight, rain, snow, air. Indeed, as we now know,

earth is made of heaven’s scattering of stardust…”

David Hinton, Existence, A Story

Back at the Mothership,

Karen shows me her photo:

It must have been a purple pine cone

at one time--I didn’t know

about purple pine cones

until now—I heard, I say,

couldn’t see, but...I just noticed

she says, it must have been

purple at one time, had to have been.

This darker color with sap running

out. This living. This, these.

Oldest trees in the world.

Karen and Jim Bodeen

Storypath/Cuentocamino

Mothership Log, 14-A

23 August 2021

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