MARK 5: 15 EMBEDDED IN RON'S POEM
for Ron Moen
The man sitting there
Isolating Mark's Gospel
Dressed in his right mind
Jim Bodeen
30 April 2022
24 April 2022 / Dear Ron,
24 April 2022
Dear Ron,
You're in the factory with those last soldiers
bandaging torn muscles,
applying direct pressure,
stop the bleeding. Stop denying.
You're with those men in Mariupol.
I know what you say about this,
dressed in the uniform of Christ,
Not me, Christ.
Like you're kneading flour, baking bread.
Christ almighty! the poets cry,
cursing, trusting unseen prayers
in hurried verses, maybe feckless,
acts of resistance nevertheless.
I am one of the poets.
Mariupol may be among those rare
congregations of the chosen.
I first read about the criminals
in the Karl Barth you sent me
years ago. I'm reading Chekhov.
Chekhov sees the difference
between compassion and communion.
Born in Taganrog, SW Russia.
Maps tell me Taganrog's 69 miles
from Mariupol. I found
this out last night by chance
beginning The Steppe.
I fell asleep with the novel open.
It's Sunday. What Psalm
do you recommend for me
this morning? No more
kneading flour, though.
I'm baking pies, working
double crusts--the French
call it frisage, smearing butter
into flour with the heal
of your hand. Kneading
warms the dough, losing
its flakiness. You're
in that factory with those men.
You've taken me to that jail,
Barth's deliverance to the captives
rests on the arm of my butterscotch chair.
What prayer comes from the heel of the hand?
Are we ready to be told what we are?
You sit with the driver, Ron,
in that horse-drawn cart.
Chekhov calls it a Britzka.
Your body says, Not for the just
but the unjust,
what matters, now.
Jim
THE DAY IN FRONT OF YOU
THE DAY IN FRONT OF YOU
Boil water for tea
Build a cairn for polished stones
Your house poem full.
Jim Bodeen
13 April 2022
DEEP TREE BREATHING
DEEP TREE BREATHING
Captured light
Manipulated desire
what is kept outside
Jim Bodeen
7 April 2022
Midnight Noon
DOUBLED BUTTER CRUST
--After S. Suzuki
Midnight Noon Dōgen
Torn silk turn ocean waves blue
So crisp the radish
Jim Bodeen
2 April 2022
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