HIKING BROWN'S RANCH TRAIL LATE NOVEMBER

Leaving my small town on a small plane

in the middle of the night, I'm reminded

what Emily Dickinson said about the mind,

how it needs what it can't know--

more than it needs any Aha! Take me there!

I tell the bus driver. Take me where news

I can't remember can't run intersections,

where everything from now is old. Older,

he asks, than Brown's Ranch settled

by E. O. Brown, a Scottsdale entrepreneur,

early part of last century? He ran thousands

head of cattle on 44000 acres. Before that?

Before that they were unwanted newcomers

to Yavapai and Apache. They came early 1600s,

hunting, occasionally raiding Pima settlements.

Desert farming Hohokam settled in valleys,

about 1300s. Before them, agriculture

became important about 1000 Common Era.

Earliest evidence places nomadic bands

on Brown's Ranch 9000 years ago.

Yavapai and Apache resistance

led to Army forts and reservations.

How far towards oblivion do you seek?

Tell me about Sonoran Desert mercies,

toward drought and famine. OK,

we'll pass under power lines before you walk.

The sun comes up over Tom's Thumb

and backlights ocatillo for the camera.

This is early light dramatic shadow.

Here, the beauty of oblivion, not knowing.

Exhaustion of trail or beauty? Water thirst.

Another bus ride back. A woman slakes fear-

thirst mixing what renews for one like me.

Organic frozen fruit chunks, clear cider--

sparkling--and Passion fruit. Float orange

slices on top with skewers of dried fruit.

Jim Bodeen

28 November 2017

IN BELL RINGING IS THE INHERITANCE OF THE WORLD,

AN INQUIRY INTO THE PLACE AND LEGACY OF THUMB PIANOS

Music runs all of the time, everywhere,

I know that, have known it since the day of the cymbals,

so long ago, now, it comes up in the forge,

emerging from fire, before the hammer.

Along with the surprising accompaniment

with the bells, and their strange alloys,

diversity in sound survives

under the surface of the empire, ringing.

I live in the country of Ella and Miles

in the era of Bob Dylan. To be sure,

this is still whispered out of hearing

of the cognizanti writing their papers.

It's a big world, isn't it.

A big world made up of nothing but music

and all of its silences. Living

in the land of song carries with it

vast invisibilities, moving you

at all times. My country

is not a safe place. My country

is not a safe place, either.

Harmony is not sameness.

Oh, the pearl work inlay on guitars.

The resonator. The guitar is under stress

even at rest. The best ones are built

at the edge of self-destruction.

Look at the yellow and gold

about to make a match.

Watching Janis in those old clips

feet stomping the floor, her foot

separating from the heel of her shoes

to make a better hammer hitting the floor,

she is not yet 27, but she's nearing

the time of her leaving, already singing

break another little piece of my heart.

On a day like this, one is tempted

to say, I just listened to all the music

of the world. Madera de mi tierra.

Salute the four cardinal points.

Shakuhachi inseperable in its roots

from early modern Japan.

I don't have any remaining tears.

Noh masks and flutes, staging the sacred.

Kultrún drum of the Mapuche

where the healing of the machi took place,

where I was born after the reading of the urine.

So many instruments running through

walking ears, ears for the people.

Even the walking stick a drum.

Jim Bodeen

2-3 December 2017

AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE BROKEN ARROW

Trade routes for the nomads.

Enter the people.

The Sinaguas at intersection.

Stopping here. Stopped here.

Unable to move. Staring?

I don't know what to call it.

Stated like this, I don't hear

their names until we've left.

Sinaguas. Those walking without water.

Sinaguas didn't have water, kept on the move.

Who gave them this name?

Kept moving, losing water.

Desert, even then. Not translate

at the Visitor's Center.

Karen likes the comparison charts

at the Monument Visitor Center.

What's going on in Europe

when Sycamore beams make the roof

for Montezuma's Castle 700 years ago?

Here we are during the time of preservation.

Descendants of inhabitants

know this place by other names,

Sakaytaka and Wupat'pela,

the place where step ladders go up

and long high walls. This,

an ancestral site in Valle Verde.

Hopi elders say, Parrot,

Bear, Water, Cloud, Bearstrap,

Bluebird and Spider all lived here.

Creosote Bush. Larrea tridentata--

Among the oldest plants on earth.

Roots soaking up water,

leaves developing a coating of resin.

I put three leaves in my mouth and chew.

Not only coating my teeth in oil,

it numbs the tongue. This is the left-

over taste in barbecue, caused by fire.

O pharmaceutical wonder, treating

toothache, dandruff, colds, body odors,

chicken pox and sprains!

Sycamore Beams 700 years old

survive, strengthening the roof

at this place where ladders go up.

Public access and souvenir taking

survived into the 1950s. Star-shaped

brown leaves fall into dusk-lit sky

surrounding the giant tree, 120 feet high,

cool to touch because it's full of water.

It won't grow unless

it's nourished by creeks.

I place my notebook on the ground

with the green passport stickers

from this place, four of them

and a page of conversation overheard

from the volunteer Ranger,

former teacher, collector of Kachina dolls,

who's read all of the Tony Hillerman books.

The Desert Storm sticker on the tool box.

Fry Bread Power sticker on the tool box.

Outside the entrance to Montezuma's Tomb,

we talk, I served, back from dentist's,

mouth numb, sand painters, Navaho,

arms around each other, Karen

buying jewelry, photos,

we empty our wallets and fry bread's free.

Pink Jeep Tours, no deaths in 57 years.

Red sandstone of Sedona, Fault lines.

Earthquakes. Notebook doesn't work.

Give myself up to the ride. To Jeep 83.

To Pete, our guide, who says

as we climb in, This is my third day

on the job. He takes Karen's hand.

It's late afternoon, late November.

Clouds bringing out the colors,

reds, browns, deep greens from Junipers

500 years old in mid-life. Red dust,

too, from Jeeps traveling.

Pete says his medication is good,

it's working, and kicking in.

Ride the White Line Sedona YouTube

young extremists on dirt bikes,

traversing and turning. Broken Arrow Trail

126. How did we find this place?

We listened. Video camera battery

runs down. IPhone camera good

as it is, can't see it, and I scale down,

move into tiny fragments of root,

dust-red sandstone on green leaves.

Pete talks to us of Vortex Sedona.

Jim Bodeen

30 November 2017

KOKOPELLI AT THE FRY BREAD STAND

Rodney opens his trunk

to show his paint supplies,

his brushes, sands, and stones

for Kokopelli, kokopilau,

wood hump in Hopi,

symbol of fertility

through mischief,

prankster, hipster.

We make a movie

right there at the Fry Bread Stand

laughing about it, EM just back

from dentist numb and laughing.

When I ask him to teach me

how to laugh like that

he bear hugs me

and shows me another stone.

We're both laughing at Karen

selecting earrings and hair accessories.

These earrings, too, will get every woman

in the village pregnant.

EXPERIENCE APPRENTICESHIP

How one works

depends upon

how one can work.

Where one is

and resources for slowing down.

When you can go slow

and for how long.

Can you stop.

And can you stay.

How long can you wait.

Because you have to keep moving.

Movement makes it possible, too.

What can be absorbed.

Stop and go.

Set and release.

Spaces in between

where vortex goes.

Vortex swirling.

Here now

we have seven nights

with bed and kitchen.

A detachable car.

Internet connections.

Museums, pink jeeps, and guides.

National monuments with storyboards.

Exile, voluntary and involuntary.

Volunteer storytellers.

Bookstores in National Parks

with the best books.

At Montezuma's Castle,

I have a choice. Stay with Kachina dolls,

take these books, carefully assembled here,

or, from Images of America series,

expensive and superior local history?

How much energy available? To me?

I take the book on Sedona,

where we're driving to. Best history

on place I haven't been to yet.

Sandstone city named after a man's wife.

Taking it with these questions.

Will it open for me? And how?

Whose voice will it be.

In Sedona, after lunch, I try.

It doesn't work. But the jeep ride guide,

Pete, the one who says

I have new medications,

they're working and kicking in,

taking us over these rocks,

gives me the voice I need,

a half dozen details,

and a way into the book.

This is vortex for me this morning,

a swirling funnel of images

from yesterday, gathered mostly by others,

over time, thousands of years with people,

millions with the landscape,

gathered for me today

in luxury setting with the best coffee

in the world. It's all working.

Pete says this is his third day

on the job. Let's go.

Believe me. Vortex. A mass

of whirling fluid or air,

especially a whirlpool or whirlwind.

That fault line!

"We were caught in a vortex of water.

"We were in a pink jeep driving up red sandstone

"We were in a whirling vortex of smoke

Merging in traffic.

Traffic of book, ideas, voices.

Stopped in time, before time and after.

Dust from ocean floor raised by sheets

of tectonic plates into mountains

and worn down again. Cyclones,

eddies, maelstroms swirling.

Black hole of creation.

Vortex of the poem,

Ezra Pound

That one. That vortex.

A century long poem made new

triggered by a man driving a jeep.

Vortex is the art of movement itself.

A single image from ten thousand

daily frames, the swirl

of ecstatic sobriety

one man walking with one woman

over time's recording.

The practice!

Jim Bodeen

Scottsdale, AZ
30 November 2017

LINES OF 5, LINES OF 7

Creosote leaf chew

Oil-coat savoring water

Text desert tongue test

Sinagua at crossroad

Karen comparing time lines

millennium chart

Seed pods of mesquite

Forest flour ground into meal

Baked into cakes

Mesquite sap candy

Adhesive and medicine

Common cold tree part

Writing all morning

Talk with Karen day and night

Ear and eye event

Her long loneliness

When I can't access wonder

It's a public death

These are the women who played with courage.

These are the women. These are the ones

who explore the virtues. Deciding

is the virtue of the will

temples of spirit radiating

from bodies, merging

with the fabric of sky.

These are the men who played with blocks

These are the men. These are the ones

who explore the virtues. Love

is the virtue of the heart who live

in house wonder, wondering in hallways

of house history. These are the ones,

women and men of the imagination.

These are notebook lines

IN THE TIME OF DYLAN

How to read houses from paper models.

Hands on wet clay shape a new thing.

Building it. Desert shelters.

Living in the time of the cantalever.

Sheer force, moments developed

in beams. Wind and earthquake stresses.

Midpoint balance. Frames for lateral loads.

Go fetch me a 5-man.

5-man what?

5-man rock.

Five guys?

You and four others.

Cherokee red names the color of my life.

A friend from home sends a poem

about the dark time we're in

and it's that dark.

Where I was last night

walking on lit path

Cosanti, the thing first

Ready, fire, first word

orient house proper

5 weeks to 5 years

Pull built environs

Implode together

Each one hand thrown pot

Craftsmen on five-count

Urban sprawl offense

Only cars connect

All in the notebook

Disparate image

Breath-way desperate

House before the thing

A bell in the yard wants wind

Light-rubbed patina

Jim Bodeen

28 Nov--2 Dec 2017

EASTER SERMON OF KARL BARTH

TALKING WITH PRISONERS

LUXURY HOTEL READING

These cool sheets on the Heavenly Bed

with all these pillows

in white pillow cases

propping me up as I pray.

Pray and read. At prayer.

We know well are plight and Thou

knowest it better. Wherever

people are gathered today.

Because I live, you will live also

John's Gospel says. ¿y todavía

no me conoces? El que me a visto

a mi, a visto el Padre. I'm stuffed,

just back from barbecue,

pulled pork shoulder and brisket--

and I didn't eat too much! Finished

my cole slaw and baked beans!

Oh, those burnt ends!

Barth delivers the captives in God's name,

not because we enjoy dealing with God,

not because we believe he's easy to follow--

no, none of that! Not because of promotion.

I'm on vacation and I live a very different life.

I know what is at stake here.

My life is at stake. My very life.

Like the man in the starched shirt says,

People die for these white sheets

on the Heavenly Bed. What more

could we do to have you stay with us?

Jim Bodeen

29 November 2017

TRANSCENDING SEDONA

Sedona may mean pride in place

Sedona. The government refused

to give T. C. Schnebly a post office

in his own name, and Sedona

was his second choice.

today, but it's also the name

of the city founder's wife,

In Sedona you can still talk

to someone who knew its first settlers.

This is Oak Creek Canyon

with its many warm shades of red rock,

come up from sand ocean bottom

to make mountains, being worn

back down to sand today.

Credit iron oxide for the beauty.

Water comes from an underground aquafer

at Grasshopper Flat. Crops of squash,

corn and beans. Picnics of fried chicken,

potato salad and home-made ice cream.

We bring Vortex with us.

Vortex, Duende, and, ListeningGod,

Ears for the people.

Vortex sites powerful and strengthening,

man/woman/balance can be located and tracked

at Red Rock Crossing, Boynton Canyon--

from Junction of Highways 179 and 89A,

drive 3.2 miles West on 89A and turn Rt.

on Dry Creek Road. People on the Path

in Sedona. Diamond signals location on map.

Documentary Video Art, School of Art, Arizona State University

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art

30 November 2017--13 clips. 13 Films in an hour, 4 minutes each, each from larger full-length films.

Filmed with IPhone.

READINGS FOR THE 29TH OF NOVEMBER

COMMON PRAYER POCKET EDITION

A LITURGY FOR ORDINARY RADICALS

SHANE CLAIBORNE & JONATHAN-WILSON HARTGROVE

--for Pastors Jim Engel, Obispo Medardo Gómez y Abelina Gómez, Ron Moen, Shane Claiborne, Paul Benz, Jill Ross, Mike Scheid, Eduardo Cabrera, Ladd Bjorneby, Emilio Benitez, Esau Cuevas, Mary Bosell, Alex Schmidt, Abiut Fajardo, Carol Nelson, Carroll Hinderlie(s), pastors all, Lars Claussen, Paul Palumbo, Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez, Chris Wogaman, Caroline Hellerich, Ron Marshall, Kerry Kesey, Phil Nesvig, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Dean Stewart, Martin Wells, Susan Briehl, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, and especially for Pastor Harald Sigmar;

--for Fr. Stanley Marrow, S.J., Pastor Rudolf Bultmann, Fr. Thomas Merton, Fr. John O'Riordan, Fr. Dean Brackley, S.J., Brother David Steindl-Rast, Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria, Fr. Rutilio Grande, Fr. Jon Sobrino; for the Mary Knoll Sisters of Chile and El Salvador; Sister Elizabeth, Sister Mary Ellen Robinson, SNJM, Kathleen Ross, Sisters of the Holy Name, SNJM, and Sister Roberta Rorke, Sisters of Providence, Mary Rita Rohde, SNJM, Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary, and those classmates from SUMORE at Seattle University.

--for those poets with begging bowls and without collars, and in other traditions, monks all; all catholic workers, inside and out.

I. PRAYERS FROM THE POCKET EDITION

"We dream of a holy village in the midst of the urban desert"

"Advent is the season when Jesus put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood."

"Becoming the answer to our prayers: A few ideas"

"3. Dismantle a bomb. Or dismantle a theological argument that dismantles bombs."

"With his coming, we learn that the most dangerous place for Christians to be is in comfort and safety...Places that are physically safe can be spiritually deadly."

To find each day's scripture readings for the morning office, consult the following table. For information regarding the person or event commemorated on a special day, consult the 'Annotated List of Special Days.' pp. 105-151.

II. MY TAKE ON THE READINGS

11-29 Dorothy Day. Psalm 139: 10-16. Micah 7: 1-10. Mk 13: 24-31

Micah first, post-harvest, gleaning.

Woe, woe, woe. To men and MSNBC.

My desire for first fresh fruit.

In your lover's arms, don't open your mouth.

50 years ago, when I was 23, newly married,

I found William Stringfellow's book

in Jerroll's bookstore in Ellensburg,

My people is the enemy.

Salmo 139: 10-16. Lo contrario!

Aun allí, tu mano me guiaria

ni las tinieblas serían oscuras para ti,

y aun la noche sería clara como el día.

Sabe todo de mi, Señor.

Aprendí esto como joven

en el estado de Dakota Norte

en mi pueblo. Supiste todo

de mi, incluyendo que yo

identicaba con los indígenas.

Begin by reading the wrong verse

in Mark. Go back to it this morning,

perhaps rushing now. Do I have

to do my lesson over? Fig branches

in spring. Sap running. Time--time

is urgent. It is when you're hungry.

If you're out in the cold

chances your neighbor knows this,

are high. You got it.

You're the neighbor.

What you gonna do, bro?

III. DOROTHY DAY AND THE ANGELS AT THE SPA

8 Nov 1897--29 Nov1980

Entertaining Angels, title of the Paulist film,

doesn't Paul show up in the unexpected places?

An image from a friend in a moment of doubt,

You never know when you're entertaining

an angel. When you're working at this level

like Miss Day, you're blind to elevated talk.

It must come as epiphany, lifting and sustaining.

My take: she didn't see herself this way.

This film can be rented at Amazon

immediately for two dollars, 97 cents,

and for seven days, it's mine. Karen

says she's going to the fabric shop

to look for material. Epigraph on black

screen opens the movie: I wanted the abundant

life. I didn't have the slightest idea how to find it.

Moira Kelly plays Dorothy Day. 1996 movie.

Film opens with young black woman

screaming in chains--jail cell or mental hospital--

can't tell, Day with her, Camel cigarettes

and a Zippo lighter--I can still hear the click

from mine--set in NYC, 1963, year

I graduate from high school. Martin Sheen

plays Peter Maurin, who (I find out later,

Googling, wrote Easy Essays in verse,

If we are crazy, then it is because we refuse

to be crazy in the same way that the world is crazy.)

Eugene O'Neill, all the artists, right there.

Alcohol and cigarettes. Artists looking for more.

Day writing, wanting that. The unprinted stories,

looking the other way. Love at the beach,

and a daughter, Tamar--there's a good

Old Testament name. Tamar won't go away,

and she won't get off Scot-free. Children

off the obsessed may learn a better way

but they'll pay a price. Day write.

(After watching the movie, wondering about Tamar,

I discover her youngest child, Kate Hennessey,

has this year--2017--published her book,

The World Will Be Saved by Beauty.)

Day's granddaughter Kate says,

All of us are inside Catholic Workers,

outside the Church. Inside/Outside.

I think Buddhists the only ones to get this.

Whatever we'll have, we'll have,

all the great talk, passing the nun on a bicycle.

looking back at the old man, startled.

Shucking oysters. Cutting the hands

looking for pearls, what else?

Cynicism. The poor people--

they seem to like the church.

How the best stuff cuts both ways.

To be an honest woman.

Who says I'm not honest?

We have a good life, the three of us.

Why isn't that enough?

Who are you?

I am a Catholic worker.

Who are you?

You drink, you wet your pants, you vomit.

How could anyone love you?

I am not who I thought I was.

You look awful. That word. Awful.

I've been thinking about who God

wants me to be in a very lonely life.

(Title of her autobiography.

How faithful we are

serving the poor.)

Peter Maurin will lose the language

that I find online,

that I'll end with--

some unfinished business

for me at home--

The coat that hangs in your closet

belongs to the poor.

Jim Bodeen

29 November--1 December 2017

ON PRESERVING MUSIC

Music moves people

through trade, slavery,

beyond colonies,

war, and the tourists.

Musical cultures

travel the Silk Road,

Atlantic slave trade.

You will hear music,

here, this place rattles.

Agbe bead rattle

yellow and red beads

Hands across stretched-skin

finger pathway strings,

Ancient harmony

Sounds cross thousand years

old rural folk song

Chinese zither propped

on player's body

Rubbing sorghum stick

Shang Dynasty Bells

tuned careful shaping

Mallet on upturned

mouths. Stone, drum, panpipe

on oracle bones

Inscribed pictographs

Hear, pattern, stomach,

Sound, color, ink, brush,

Two tones ringing bells

Buried bells, stone chimes

Rising dragons engraved

Dark opera stars

Stone, brush, ink

Hand Perfume River

Contemplating sound

Write poems, listen

ring bells, man on horse

rides along river

Immortal lovers

on ceramic pot

Walk on yellow leaves

Panpipe bird bones

in place of people

Preserving music

Jim Bodeen

1-6 December 2017

AT THE DESERT BOTANICAL GARDENS

20 ANGELS LIGHTING CANDLES

WHILE KAREN AND I WALK

LONG LOVE THROUGH TIME

Full Moon Luminaria

Yo Yo Ma strings sent our way

Churros dripping brown sugar

Jim Bodeen
2 December 2017

PORTRAITS FROM THE HEARD MUSEUM

i. T. C. CANNON

Two Spec5 soldiers in green fatigues

drinking beer in Vietnam. Looks like

a Coors can in the one man's hand--the one

with the big shades from the time, light

enough lens to make eye contact.

Screaming Eagles, Airborne, sleeves

rolled to the elbow. Feathers in their hair,

warriors, is one of them you, TC? The older

man on the left with his right arm

on the shoulder of the younger one in front.

Hand draped casual, intimate, covering

the eagle. 67-68. Tet. Those two Bronze

Stars. I was there at the 85th Evac.

Hundreds of your guys went through us

all shot up. Almost 40 years after your crash,

reading your obituary, canonized by

Sally Monahan Zogry. We were at the Heard,

my wife and I, all afternoon. I didn't know.

We were being ushered out by guards,

when I saw something of yours, turned

abruptly. There it was. Your great work,

collected. Your statement from1974:

I must dwell in places where I am

always in awe of God and mortal men.

ii. AWA TSIREH [CAT TAIL BIRD]

Seldom seen work in metal, silver, copper,

aluminum. Alfonso Roybal, water colorist

painter. Pueblo buffalo hunter with bow.

White gloves and moccasins, Buffalo head

dress. Dancing skirt. The rattles. Maybe

the greatest turkey ever painted. Red goblet,

black wing feathers designed to strut--

a good thing for self-taught artists anywhere,

the great artist caught in between cultures

at Garden of the Gods Trading Post--Colorado's

largest Indian store. Michoacán-born

Charles Strausenback builds a studio

and brought in artists. Awa Tsireh

came as early as 1930. My parents

brought me here as a child, crying,

believing I could be a warrior, maybe

a scout on a pony, if I could hold

that pipe and bring it to my mouth--

if I could wear those feathers,

I might be a chief. If I could wrap

myself in that Indian blanket

surely I would be warm. These

possibilities surface again looking

at the conch belt under glass.

Images in lithograph on walls

stare at me, an old man today.

I peer through the stereoscope

I may have looked through

as a boy. The post cards

in old touring cars among red rocks.

Frog, dragonflies, turtle form conchos.

Buckle in the shape of a frog.

iii. MARIA MONTOYA MARTINEZ

My wife points to the family tree where she finds

Maria Martinez. San Ildefonso Pueblo,

Where Water Cuts Through

Po-Woh-Geh-Owingeh, in Tewa.

San Ildefonso is the home of potter

Maria Martinez. My old professor,

godfather of our twin daughters, led us

to her decades ago, showed us these

black pots. From a small classroom

a generation of artists emerges. In finished

pottery, a glossy, melted appearance

only used for decoration on the pots,

emerges. Smothering the fire, traps

smoke that deposits itself in clay,

creating shades to gunmetal black,

and highly burnished, black on black.

iv. PABLITA VELARDE'S STUDIO

Recreated right here in the museum.

How it is now. An occupied room

for the artist. Born on Santa Clara Pueblo

near Española, NM, at fourteen accepted

to Dorothy Dunn's Santa Fe Studio Art School

at Santa Fe Indian school, flat painting,

and water colors. There she is, life-size

portrait in cotton print dress, pencil

in right hand, left elbow on table,

hand raised, looking at me through

large clear glasses, smiling, Katsina

dolls behind her on shelves. Her table

extends into the studio, her small

electric sewing machine in front of her,

another table in front of that one

with paints and brushes, unfinished

painting. Off to the side, the 10-inch

(maybe) black and white television

from the 1950s. On the wall behind me

on viewing side of studio, Pablita's

timeline. In earth paintings

she used rock and mineral ground

into metate and mano powder

made into paint. From this emerges

swimming turtles and Koosa Clowns,

mischief makers dancing and cavorting

during breaks at Pueblo dances.

Pablita's smile on the clowns?

She doesn't answer that question.

Here's a cubist Koosa, mouth rosy

and red and smiling from experiment,

eye lashes long and dark.

v. HOW IS IT NOW

How it is now. Occupied room

not set aside for the artist with pen and paint.

How it is now. Cowboy Indian Warrior painter,

for starters. American contradiction, history giving him

what he needed to break free. Notebook

and sketchbook. Art that doesn't separate.

Expression of breath.

He took his trained eye to war.

At the front before he went to the front.

Walking into the museum, sign overhead,

We are on a path together, at the same time,

generations traveling together. My past

and future are at my side; you are never

too far from your past or future. From

Kathy Sanchez, San Ildefonso Tewa.

Population 524 in the last census;

from Eight Northern Pueblos. Pueblo

people asking throughout, How should

we be? How should we treat each other?

How will we bless and be blessed?

Indigenous Evolution stops me

going in and coming out. Twenty feet

of fence fronted by adobe, clay and glass,

colors of the Southwest. Tony Jojola,

Isleta and Rosemary Lonewolf:

The fence speaks to the endurance

of our culture, going through boundaries.

Visitors--those looking--are invited

to leave stereotypes behind and enter.

Here are the indigenous--T.C. Cannon's

Letters from Vietnam, speaking

of a thoughtful God. Here is full exposure.

Exposure to the sun. One who stood there.

Who wore Army fatigues. Resonating

with all that's personal--distinct

and blended, an established limitless future.

Jim Bodeen

29 November--5 December,2017

Phoenix, Az--Yakima, Wa

WALKING THROUGH SO MANY INSTRUMENTS

Timbila (xylophone), Valhila now played to accompany sung poetry, Lokangabara three-stringed fiddle, bowel lute, Sanga, Chisanji, Likembe, thumb piano, lamellaphones; preferred

instrument of story tellers, historians, and ritual experts throughout Africa, Lifela, narrative songs of migrant miners, Hosho, rattle, Ngoma, goblet drum, Ngoma, goblet drum Ngombi, arched harp, Lalo Guerero & Sonorra, Double bells, whistles, Tom Lyre, bardic poetry & praise, Side-blown trumpet, wood and cow pelt, Kurbi, harp, Ma'luf, Tunisia's oldest instrument Bendir, single-headed frame drum, Guniibi, all-night ceremonies, placate spirits Ardin, harp, lute, gourd, lemon wood, hide, iron,Tidinit, plucked lute, wood animal skin, Darbukka, arabic poetry, Karkabat, clappers, iron, leather, Vul, walking stick, but in dances, stamped percussively, Court music, song and praise poetry, Mwami (Tutsi kings, bardic poet-singers, Bowl, spoons, objects, bows and flutes, One-stringed fiddle, A snake can kill an antelope but may be conquered by a bird, Lyaaly ddurdun and isagja dundru, double-handed hourglass drum, wood, fabric, animal skin, Atungblan drum, diviners, ritual experts, Provers, riddles, folk tales, dance, Yes, war and national pride, too, "And this is a museum, it's not a concert hall," the elder woman says to her grandchildren, Finacon, stories of everyday life spoken rhyme and rhythm rituals, Bracelets as rattles, Kora,Skin, Griots, professional musicians, praise singers, historians, traditionally griots performing for chiefs, patrons, politicians, A couple more, Komusu, praying for alms Shakuhachi, inseperable from early modern Japan, Noh maskes, flutes, Staging the Sacred, Kultrún, Mapuche drum, Maderas de mi tierra, Saluting the four cardinal points, Guitarrón, Jarana, Bajo Sexto, Vihuela, Tololoche, Marímbula, Teponaztli, Basic Beat Fish shapedguiro with striker,

TRAVELING WITH KAREN

At an auction event for La Casa Hogar,

a program for empowering women

in Yakima, Washington, where my wife, Karen

serves on the Board of Directors,

I bid on a week’s stay

in a luxury resort in Scottsdale/Phoenix.

The Auctioneer points at me, and says, Sold.

Elation with a let-down, followed by a melt-down.

What will I do in a luxury resort?

I’ll be with Karen.

I’ll see what I can see, find out what I can find out.