X. NEITHER HOT NOR COLD

 

X.

NEITHER HOT NOR COLD

        the reason why I do it

        though I fail and fail

        in the giving of true names

        is I am adam and his mother

        and these failures are my job

                Lucille Clifton, the making of poems, two-headed woman

        Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

        Revelation 3: 14-20

            December 8, 1940—from the sermon of Rudolf Bultmann, This World and Beyond

        “Amen”. Amen signifies validity: what is unshakably true. R.B.

I.

Black history month. Where I learn to say, Amen.

Heat came from my mother and she gave it to me.

But the poets: Countee Cullen:

To make a poet black

and make him sing.

If only I could do something like that.

II.

        And from that hidden beyond, there can and there will one day break forth into this world

        a power for judgment...R. B.

A boy walking railroad tracks. His father at the grain elevator.

Rural North Dakota.

He sets out walking rails.

A rope-pulled elevator takes them up,

father and son.

Holding his father’s leg rising into dust and sky.

Unbalanced on rails. Through dark silos of grain.

This was Indian country with a church.

across the street from his house.

He searched the sky for Smoke signals.

Later he heard about the Blessingway Singer.

Hozho. Frank Mitchell and his wife.

Everyone told him he couldn’t go.

They told him he didn’t belong.

But when he asked the family

Each member said it would be a blessing.

III.

            Or perhaps the inner void of our lives has become painfully apparent

            to us at some moment when we have been called upon

            to help and comfort another…R. B.

My parents would cry in their sleep from the cold. The pastor didn’t like what he heard.

The church right across the street from our house. Jesus Christ. Real loud.

I knew they were prayers. Jesus knew that too. Jesus heard. Nobody here cursing.

This is a house of prayer.

IV.

            A poet, Wilhelm Busch, with his vein of playful fantasy,

            describes with somewhat grim humour

            a dream which transported him…R. B.

Men and women made of numbers,

hollowed out.

Still running into them.

As soon as they open their mouths.

Makes me want to get out of town.

Up to seven, numbers speak of God.

Talk bottoms out in a hurry.

Moves to a kind of middle...

Like painted lines on the highway.

So much traffic to get there.

From the inside of a painted line

you won’t recognize

suffocation or salvation.

From this side of the line, no survivors.

Alcohol everywhere.

You can’t see the line

but on its other side, small talk.

V.

            ...the word of God which resounds from the invisible world of eternity: R.B.

We are connected in time, Dr. Bultmann.

I was born 9 August 1945.

I was young, back from war.

An old pastor gives me the kairos

for my questions.

Word arriving in the instant.

Like a goodnight kiss.

Poem come from nothing.

What came to me

as a boy

come to me

as a man

Accessing that place

from a town not on the map.

Belonging to everything.

God-world.

Eternity’s sand.

The chimney sweep’s pillow.

William Blake in the living room.

My living room.

Matter of fact world,

this one.

VI.

            ...the depths of divine love are opened out only to him

            who allows himself to be emancipated in his life. R. B.

I know this about him.

He had to know.

At every point in his life.

Every time it came up—where ever.

He went down that road.

Jim Bodeen

2-5 February 2025