BERTHA BRINGS ME A ROCK

 

BERTHA BRINGS ME A ROCK

from Railroad Creek

at Holden Village, the old copper mine

turned retreat center where

she just returned from. She

was there with Israel, her husband--

It’s his birthday today!,--we’re out

on the patio eating pie and ice cream.

We spent ten years with them,

the abrecaminos, at Holden Village,

mining our hearts, cruzando fronteras,

but didn’t go this summer.

Bertha hands me this stone

saying, This mountain

has come down to you.

Afterwards, Israel, whispers

in my ear, as he sings,

Caminos de Michoacán.

Nobody can hear as we take

the one road out of Quiroga.

Jim Bodeen

22 August 2022

Mil gracias, Bertha y Israel!

NEARLY 8 AM ALREADY

 

NEARLY 8 AM ALREADY

and I sit with my empty yogurt cup

looking at the Rilke poem

from the Book of Hours,

Part One, the Monastic Life,

Karen’s name written

in the margins, talking

to myself as I read, She who

reconciles the ill-marked threads

of her life, and weaves them gratefully

into a single cloth--falling

into her blanket, her sewing

machine dream-humming

in my ear, it feels given to me,

these poems to God, come

first through the muse.

As I write opening lines

in the notebook, returning

to the poem, I find another

image of Karen, I say, Here,

here I am the partner

of her loneliness. I have searched

the essential tombs

of monologues, have discovered

nothing of her quiet soliloquies--

that dash following cloth,

like torn silk, plain inner lining,

shiver of extravagance

of the kimono.

--for Karen, midweek in August,

2022,

Jim