DUTCH OVEN CAMP WALKING JIM HARRISON TRAIL

 

DUTCH OVEN CAMP WALKING

THE JIM HARRISON TRAIL

It always feels like yesterday

when somebody dies. I always feel

this way. Jim Harrison died at 78.

I knew that, I did. What I didn’t know,

find hard to believe, is that he died

in 2016–26 March 2016. In fact, I don’t

believe, now, because there’s no

evidence for this. Seven years,

not on your life. I don’t have trouble

with March 26. No difficulty

there. I was at table with Karen

a few minutes ago, telling her this.

She was eating a tuna fish sandwich.

I was scraping the aluminum bowl

fishing bits of pickle with my knife,

spreading tuna fish on saltine crackers.

I ate the last of it. How is it possible

that we sit here like this. That’s

what I asked her. All this beauty

right out the back door. Fall color.

Birches. Maples. Leaves falling.

More. Our son coming home

from his mountain. Karen calling

for ribs on Sunday for celebration.

All this now while Israel lines up

tanks to go get Hamas. Baby back ribs,

leaves, cole slaw, your sauce. Explain

to me the Gaza Strip one more time.

Leave out the part of the electrical grid.

When you get back from Macy’s, let me know.

I sit in the butterscotch chair.

My chair. Jim Harrison’s Complete Poems

in my lap. I’m hiking with Chama

in the morning. My Argentinian friend.

We’re reading Borges together. The poems.

Whitman, Cervantes. Lucas XXIII.

And this, from Ariosto y los Árabes,

Y al mismo tiempo andaba por la luna.

I just paid fifty bucks for the hardback Harrison.

It’s beautiful. My friend Jim Hamlin’s listed

in back for his donation. I’ve purchased

three of these now, as well as the bound

boxed-set. I’m doing my part.

Most of the people I run with have never

held a book this beautiful except for the Bible.

These two Harrison editions contain

different introductions! Tight bindings.

Boards. The boxed set too beautiful to read.

I’ve tried. I can hold them, that’s all.

The one on my lap has the painting,

Spring Moon Over the Marshall Ridge

by Russell Chatham, from 2018.

You know what that means, don’t you.

He never saw this painting.

Jim Harrison never saw it.

That’s hard to believe.

But there’s no evidence Jim Harrison is dead.

He and Chatham knew each other.

My wife and I are eating tuna fish

on crackers when this all started.

Sitting at table. How is it possible,

I ask, this country, our country

can make weapons for every war

in this world? How many?

How many weapons have we got?

Do we never run out of ammunition?

I didn’t lay it all out like this.

Not all of of it. We talked about

Zev and Ezra, father and son,

opposite ends of the continent.

Zev’s writing poems in Teaneck.

Ezra Vancouver, B.C., spokes-person

for the Jewish community.

Father linking son to famous rabbi grandfather.

One who walked with Heschel

across Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Zev says to me, I’m tiny.

I say back, I understand.

Karen and I will talk about this.

Last night we listened.

Palestinian homeland.

Admit all the necessaries.

So, OK. Like Zev, we’re tiny, too.

And Harrison in my lap, at my fingerprints.

Riding a train across Russia with Yesenin.

This book. I can’t tell you.

Jim Bodeen

11-23 October 2023