https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsvMtS4MpdE
WALK BUT NEVER LEAVE HOME: THE MOVIE
ANCESTRAL SILENCE
Long hike notebook stored
Seeking portraits in old stones
Turtle cave tunnel
Jim Bodeen
1 June 2024
SUMMER MOON SCULPTURE
SUMMER MOON SCULPTURE
Walking stick branches
Antlers wound with copper wire
This metaphor mess
What looked good in last year’s dream
Warms hands in evening campfire
Jim Bodeen
28 May 2024
YOU WANT A NIGHT LIKE THIS
THE JOE BROOKS QUARTET IN THE BASEMENT
https://youtu.be/zbwX5ttG87U?si=_PVkCLTfs13Thj33
SUNDAY EVENING IN THE CHURCH BASEMENT
--for the Joe Brooks Quartet
On the week they fly your wife over the mountains
for heart surgery and she’s back home in 72 hours
with a new Pacemaker,
you’re gonna want a night like this.
Joe Brooks Quartet's playing in the church basement.
Taped on the basement window Upbeat Concert
is what we’re told. Psalm 104 in my head from worship
and Karen one week with her newly timed
heart. The guest pastor remembering Robin Island at 22.
She travels with the bishop now. The boat ride.
Always a boat ride. Crossing water. Throwing
death overboard. Shaking her hand, saying,
Now we can add your names to others who stood
in this pulpit.. Alan Storey preached here.
South Africans open the heart of the world.
Shake the dust from your pant legs. Dust yourself off
and photograph the piano player when he comes
to sit by Karen. It’s Bart Roderick.
This is jazz. You want a night like this.
On a clear day, you can see forever
and right now, everything’s clear. All the stars are out
and all the stars are guides. Sun rays shine
on Maria’s face while she serves Communion
and this is God’s justice. The Joe Brooks Quartet
warms up in the basement. Joe Brooks,
Bart Roderick, Austin Pledger, Don Kinney.
Times are different again. Joe Brooks in red-rimmed glasses.
Don Kinney’s the drummer, but the camera can’t reach him.
Stand-up listener, Austin Pledger on bass,
tuned into his elders. Those magnificent strings.
Bart knows all the kid songs from grade school.
Give him the green light and tell him to sing
Georgia. Georgia’s on a lot of our minds.
Count the votes as they were cast and not one more.
keep time with your toes, remember Ray Charles
at 16 in Seattle. Your toe is your ticket to freedom.
It’s date night and this is jazz.
This is Georgia. It’s Gershwin.
It is, Joe says, It is. It is Karen
back with a pacemaker. Only count
the votes that have been cast. That’ll do us.
Capture the beat of Psalm 104.
That Pacemaker, Don Kinney, that Pacemaker.
It’s a drum stick. It’s atria, it’s ventricle.
It’s red blood on the back beat.
Who coverest thyself with a light as with a garment.
I reach out to Karen and put my arm around her.
I can touch her. Opening night
and who can I turn to?
It’s date night. Here’s Karen breathing.
First night out back from hospital.
A pacemaker keeping time in our hearts.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
On a clear day song outshines every star--
summertime and the living is easy.
One of these mornings let me tell you about today.
Jim Bodeen
May 10-26, 2024
NOTES ON AN ENVELOPE AND 2Xs FROM HABITAT BUILD
NOTES ON AN ENVELOPE AND 2Xs
FROM THE HABITAT BUILD
For Greg Rapp, whose Habitat shirt reads Captain on the back
I apologize right away we didn’t think
to have enough saw horses—today
you get to wear hard hats—watch
for hazards—a hose
is a hazard
Banana shaft all walls
Any journeymen here?
Top of walls, check ceiling first
and start in the top corner
2x10s out there use the ugly lumber
blocking—it’s just blocking everywhere
This wall needs blocking
twisted boards ok
save the good lumber—blocking’s
backnailing for the sheetrock I know I’m talking fast
Oh
we can put some rat runs here
This lot was a cherry orchard...they used arsenic…
we’ll bring in soil--
We’re gonna start with rat runs across this bay
Mark as you go it’s not consistent at all
Use these 1x4s What do we do now? I’ll show you
Grab three more of those--
Start out at 23 ¼ first one—24 on center after that--
Rat runs hold 2xs in place at 24 for sheetrock
Jim Bodeen
22 May 2024
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HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
Sheltered coded love
Written prayers inside studs
Work, habitat, house
Jim Bodeen
24 May 2024
NOON ON THE PORCH--THIS TIME
NOON ON THE PORCH--THIS TIME
Karen at the quilt show in a wheel chair.
She won’t have to rent, we won’t have to pack
one in the car. Provided by the Convention Center.
She had to leave them her driver’s license
while I drove.
The day our life changed?
Our life changes with every breath.
The fountain’s on, water’s running
through my ears—the geraniums
all in planters out front. More in the back
with other annuals—heliotrope
in the moonlight makes me think
of Our Town. Purple haze. More
in back with cotton candy. Jimi
and Prince. After
dropping Karen off at the show
I found two trivets—three feet--
risers to lift planters off porch,
that good old word lifts the kettle
right off the stove! These, however,
with four feet and a new name, hmmm.
Also a bag of thistle for the finches.
But where are they? The finches?
I’ve been looking at this notebook.
Haven’t been able to open.
The notebook sits on top of the poems.
Antonio Machado leaves the classroom
with Willis Barnstone and Alan Trueblood.
My own walk parted with Trueblood years ago,
Caminante. Walking. Más caminante que él--no--
Lonelier. Barnstone transcended early.
Mixed in with geraniums, four
sweet potato vines I picked up
at Master Gardener’s sale I attended
with my son-in-law. Heart-shaped leaves.
Two lime-colored, two burgundy.
No blossoms yet. Seven days from last Friday
we sold the truck that carries the Mothership.
Storypath/Cuentocamino in red. Black slash.
Romanian brothers. The older one
hands me 210 100-dollar bills on this porch.
Karen says, We’ll have to take these to the bank.
Los gitanos in Chile and Spain. Walking.
Long-walking. It’s cool on the porch.
Porch room. Like a Japanese tea room.
Elegant. Two hours after we get back
from the bank, Karen’s doctor calls.
I want you to go to the ER, get a CAT scan.
There could be a clot in your lungs.
It wasn’t a clot. Más luna que tierra.
Complete heart blockage. Nobody
in Yakima to do the surgery. We’ll get you
a plane and a medical team from Seattle
are on their way, we found a bed
at Good Samaritan in Puyallup.
More moon than landscape, Machado.
My car follows the crescent moon.
Mountains in the night sky.
Manantiel de nueva vida.
Pacemaker sounds like the drummer
in a jazz band. Electronics
of the heart. This quartet has ceased
all communication. Life on the road.
Caminante, son tus huellas
hace el camino. Nada más.
Twenty two years ago Machado
walks me through Spain, south
to Lorca’s Grenada. Doble cortado
in the same café. Driving at night.
Karen in the air with a dropping heart-rate,
these lime colored leaves, these blood-red vines.
Teresa de Avila and John of the Cross in ecstasy,
walking. Lorca’s Duende, dark sounds,
breath of liberation. Six pots on the porch,
flowers and leaves and compost
from the Autumn Blaze Maple and China Moon,
hand-tossed and aged nourishing tiny roots.
A fountain. Over and back rhythms.
48 hours. Karen listening with this steady beat.
Her quilts in a show. Quilts in the City.
Variation on a Summer Moon, Mariner’s Compass,
and Abstract Bee. Her work from the past year
when we didn’t know what we didn’t know.
Walking being that wheel chair today
because it’s easier that way. Water music
and words running down the page.
Sunshine and shade. Sol y sombra.
Jim Bodeen
10–20 May 2024
RECYCLING THE BLUES OF ABUNDANCE
RECYCLING THE BLUES OF ABUNDANCE
--85 songs for Marty
Don’t we dress ourselves
in song Don’t never
go out of style And don’t
we keep pushing
music back
while walking forward,
Don’t we refuse
fused as we are
every promotion
listening always
at what comes
from below,
Don’t we have
it all like it’s never
been had before
and will never be had
this way
again
ever
and
don’t
this make us rich
Don’t this
make us ageless
able to hear
what can’t be heard
herdless
without wires
able sounds
and timeless
vessels
Jim/15 May 2024
HOW SHE GOT UP
HOW SHE GOT UP
Well, I sewed last night
I’m talking about my dream
How to make that purse
How Karen entered Thursday
Quilt vision writes this haiku
Jim Bodeen
9 May 2024
MAKE YOURSELF A HOME MY LOVE
MAKE YOURSELF A HOME MY LOVE
A rendering from John 15: 5-15
Brought up with belief
But living with the practice
Sweep Rake Prune Walk Bake
Intimate pruned organic
Put your life on the line friend
Jim Bodeen
3-4 May 2024
ALTERED ALTARS
ALTERED ALTARS
Polishing chrome wheels
Giving back to the Empire
Kinds of existence
Short lives of summer altars
Sparkling Angel Mothership
Jim Bodeen
1 May 2024
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