BACK YARD UNDER BIRCHES

 

BACK YARD UNDER BIRCHES

White paper bark Jacquemontes

this garden holding me, September

side-light sunshine, birds.

Neighbor cat climbs the white plastic fence

back home, geese bounding

their displacement honk.

Ajedrez, Reloj de arena,

poemas de Borges. Doctor’s

appointment canceled.

Medicine, too, in lockdown.

Chess and hourglass. House picked

up. Inside-clean. Vacuumed

corners on knees Last night

we re-hung Karen’s quilts.

Karen going for coffee.

So beautiful here, Van sings

in my head, so quiet.

Just enough birds and bird calm.

This garden, these trees.

Last night serving food at Camp Hope,

two granddaughters with Karen and I.

One man asking Karen, What church?

Discovers he’s been sleeping in Church gardens.

It’s scary in there, he tells Karen.

Noisy, voices. I thought it’d be quiet.

What do you grow?

Flowers and trees. You were under

rhododendrons it sounds like.

A Mexican family stands by the door

of the dinner tent. Hamburgesa

is what I call the Sloppy Joes.

Sammie and Dee serve cole slaw, green beans.

Where in Mexico, I ask the kids.

Aguililla, they say. So many from there

over a half century. So many former

students. Some of them teachers now.

Jose, Alberto. Friends of our kids,

students, colleagues, friends,

¿Estan en escurela, aquí?

Sí, en Wapato.¿Le gusta?

Sí.

Ponga atención. Aprendan leer, escribir.

Mis nietas hablan español.

¿De veras.?

Sammie gives me that look.

I only know how to name some fruits.

After dinner Sam finds a baby bottle

someone left behind. I know the family

whose baby left this behind, she says.

She and Dee go out looking for them in camp.

Camp Hope. They find the family,

exchange laughter. I’m watching

from the dinner tent, seeing this again,

under the birches. Borges looking

at me from the book’s spine.

Azar in the middle of dust and nothing.

Fate, luck, chance, walking

between polvo and nada.

Borges is a Blessingway singer.

Navajo, hozho, celebrating

La Maestria de Dios, who,

in magnificent irony,

me dio a la vez los libros y la noche.

Those kids at Camp Hope like it here.

They like school. All poems son dones,

as Williams said, as Borges worked with.

Nothing but the poem, Williams wrote.

I have been singing him to myself over the duration.

Borges at table, tablero,

at chess, threading sand through the hourglass,

struck and pierced in the mirror.

El espejo of myself. Borges delivers

the poem in the way that grammar

gives me confidence to walk free.

Free will even in its limitations.

Albedrió before me.

¿Qué dios detrás de Dios?

The man writing in his notebook,

whether at prayer or worship,

raises his hands as if they were branches.

Jim Bodeen

12 September 2023