TWO AT ONCE MOUNTAIN
--for Terry
Here on the mountain
The moment of this mountain
This happened to me.
Love,
Jim
Winter Solstice, 2023
THE VOTIVE CANDLE AND THE PLAY DOH
CANDLE AND PRAYER
--for the poet, and for the pastor
During the time for quiet
the woman in robes
passes by rows of people
sitting next to each other
in chairs, saying,
Take one of these
balls of play doh
I made in my kitchen
and choose the color
you like best. When
the tray of home-made
memories comes to me, I pick out
a green one, all of these
died with food coloring,
and I remember
my mother
setting them out like a rainbow
when we were children
and playing science.
Blue, green, red, yellow,
tiny brown bottles
on the North Dakota
card table in winter.
My fingers cracked
because of the cold.
I place my thumb
in the middle of the ball
warming the dough
until I can smell
flour and oil
coming from my hands
filling the chapel,
and as my nostrils fill
with the rising, what,
bread? its oven-rich aroma,
I’m slow to become
aware of the others singing--
they have left me behind,
the green ball has flattened
into something
between plate and bowl,
shallow, its circumference
in my palm, small enough
to fit into a child’s dollhouse,
much smaller than
the votive candles
lit by the altar. Just
yesterday, a set
of four votive candles
in the mail
sent by a friend.
Votive candles!
Karen and I said together.
But I don’t know the word!
I cried. Votive candles!
Karen says again, and
I can still hear my cry,
I know the thing,
but I don’t know the word!
Listening again, hearing the singing,
returning to the room.
Did I become a child
to hear my mother’s voice?
Was it finding the root,
Sacred act, vow and promise?
Did this happen lighting candles?
After the others leave,
I walk my investment in play
to the altar. This object
offered in fulfillment
of vows, even as clay dries
and cracks, asking
again about devotion and light.
Jim Bodeen
11-15 December 2023
EARLY AND DARK, what she said
EARLY AND DARK,
what she said, part
of the after-walking
before sunrise
with the walking stick
and the coffee ready,
votive candle lit
new running shoes
reflecting car lights
and the mind
also tuned to reflect
the beloved,
her clarity
a moonlit
messenger—
in bed, talking,
I say to her,
This is foreplay,
and turning back
she says, no, no,
This is a back rub.
Jim Bodeen
7 December 2023
Storypath/Cuentocamino: : MCKENZIE RIVER RESTORATION AT FINN ROCK: A WATER S...
Storypath/Cuentocamino: : MCKENZIE RIVER RESTORATION AT FINN ROCK: A WATER S...: MCKENZIE RIVER RESTORATION AT FINN ROCK A Water Suite Winter Count for Barry Lopez Blessingway is used for everythi...
THE MOON TONIGHT
THE MOON TONIGHT
--The mind is trying to discover and to find its place within the land,
to discover a way to dispel its own sense of estrangement.
--Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams
--Something else that is the case, one species--
the one that uses fire—is remarkably
like fire: insatiable…”
--Robert Bringhurst, The Ridge
When Horizon fully opens,
the mind born out of itself,
calls for cosmic prayers
from story tellers in animal voices
from uncounted spirit forces
telling how in burn and breath
it was for them, I’d like to know,
the place in book or landscape--
and what it was and why,
and I’d like them, plant or animal,
to tell what happened in the reading,
in the living, in the rooting of horizon
and the reading and living outside
of the book and the soil. I’d like them
to tell, too, of their preparations
for the receiving of Barry Lopez’ work.
What prepared the way for this opening,
this epiphany, or blossoming.
What led up to the breaking open,
in other words than words.
What stone witnessed?
This Barry Lopez singing.
This Blessingway. For there were several
light landings, places where the gods
might have set down had they been in the area.
And of many other things, several
readings of the horizon,
multiple ways of experience
separating circles of the line.
His boundary, his limit has been
delineated many times
before becoming life-work.
This singing and this falling.
The wonders of this sewing.
The weavings in the fabric. And now,
each new place within any
observer’s position or range
of perception. His, a place
preparing one for what’s next,
while waiting. Mine is the hand
of one writing with a notebook
held on the steering wheel
while driving in the dark,
one passing through, who overheard
a man talking about a stand of trees.
Slowing the work, following river’s
demand of slowing the water. This.
Life and work intersecting
land and sky completely apprenticed.
Open to where conversation is surprise.
The listening. The notebook.
The Blessingway in notebooks.
When the moon is near the horizon
the scattering of blues, greens and purples.
Light with a longer distance to travel.
It hasn’t been said yet. This trail work.
Jim Bodeen
31 October 2023–26 November 2023
Sisters, Oregon, Finn Rock/McKenzie River, Oregon,
Yakima, Washington
Existence, Did it help, The quiet woman
●
“Existence, when there might just as well be none: the sheer presence of materiality, vast and deep, everything and everywhere. Existence rustles. It wonders. It wants to recognize itself, wants orientation. It must, for it evolved animals like us that feel compelled to do such things. Recognition, orientation: how could it begin? A cairn, perhaps. Stones gathered, the largest few settled on flat earth, and the rest built up from there: slow, one stone at a time, keeping things whole.” p. 22.
David Hinton, Existence: A story
●
DID IT HELP?
Well? Eyes look up
when the door opens,
Like questions
wanting to know.
●
THE QUIET WOMAN
Coming and going
returning over two passes
the same way he came
Karen’s fabric-cut landscapes
Roomful of women quilting
Jim Bodeen
16 November 2023
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