●
THE NEW NOTE CARDS
He puts an envelope
into the margin of the book
where he wants to begin. To hold it.
He’s written title and author’s name
on a slip of paper, cut to fit,
and he puts that below the passage.
He learned to make note cards
in junior high school 65 years ago.
A scrap of paper has room
for the page number.
He will take his Iphone
and photograph this portion
of the page. He can make
postcards from the image.
He may write something,
a poem, a prayer,
or, simply send it
as it was made, in an email.
Jim Bodeen
23 October 2024
IN THE NARTHEX FOLLOWING WORSHIP
THE WOMAN ASKS ABOUT THE PIN
ON MY SHIRT JUST ABOVE THE POCKET
First thing, Do you see the bottlecap?
What? The bottlecap. The bottlecap.
OK. Inside the bottlecap, find the silver.
Yes, the silver. A lump of silver.
It has a molten look, like it’s running,
like hot lava. That’s the silver when it’s dumped
into ice and freezes. Do you see it frozen?
OK. Find the wire. The wire in the middle
of the silver. When the wire gets tied
onto the bottle cap, the silver
becomes a bag. Find the bag.
Good. Inside that bag
is where I keep my treasure.
Jim Bodeen
11 August 2024
●
0621 HOURS
Coffee finishing as I come
into the house after walking
the short block of the neighborhood,
glance at yesterday’s offering,
adding, Oh, I had pickles!
on the free line. Gail is out
with her little white dog.
It’s dark. Street lights.
I can’t talk. We had company,
and all have colds
and we’re testing for Covid.
Let us know. As for the Psalms,
Lord, they have opened me,
and you have given this day.
Jim Bodeen
29 September 2022
●
AFTER LABOR DAY
Mowing lawn first time
in three years. Wears me out,
feels good. Josh has been
that good. I text him
isolated in his room
with Covid. It looks like
I cut that grass with a scissors.
He writes back, Ha Ha.
He doesn’t punctuate.
Karen, back from hygienist
sleeps off nitrous oxide,
induced liminosity dreaming
from a dentist. Outback
with the Coptic Psalter,
preparing myself for prayer,
Psalm 87 directing my lips,
I am a poor man.
Bow down, Lord, hear me out.
Up at all hours, Elder whisperings,
Monks are God’s athletes.
Jim
6-7 September 2022
THE WORD IS JUST, LA PALABRA ES JUSTO
…it is fitting for the upright to praise him[1]
…es propio de los
integros alabar al Señor[2]
…right living people
sound best when praising[3]
…to the
straightforward, praise is becoming[4]
…for praise is comely
for the upright[5]
--Psalm 33/Salmo 33
I take my temperature on the 33d Psalm.
With the 33d Psalm I live out my days.
I haven't gotten off to a very good start today.
It's early. That's not lost on me either.
Cool jazz, easy on the ear, isn't me.
I'm slide trombone, slurred, full of spit,
in between every position.
Caballero andante, cruzando las fronteras.
I have used flattery and been found out.
I stand guilty before my friends
and hide my eyes from my companion,
suspicious of myself before the beloved.
I am a beggar for the unguarded word.
Soy buscador, navegador armado en quijotescos.
Escudriñado de nada, chulo de diccionarios.
Como me dije, este día sería largo.
I am useless, there is nothing I can do.
The 33d Psalm is the breath-gift praising God.
Jim Bodeen
28 September 2020
OCTOBER PRAYER
O God of Sorrow and Steel,
My God, God of Jesus
and God of my North Dakota Childhood,
You know me like you know my music,
I am never in doubt. You know,
God of the Blues Sung
Slow,
My God, God of Salvation in the Blues,
my tendencies in the music store
run steel deep into sorrow,
You know how I found You
early and stayed, a person
my age, ambitious in foolishness,
always auditioning, before You
again and again in the Notebook
and in the Mail, You are,
You, God of Commemorative Stamps,
God of my country's sorrow,
God of Sorrow and Steel,
You contain my tears, with me in my weeping,
You do not, I do not hear You, You, God,
No voice of yours stops in my morning prayers
Jim Bodeen
2 October 2019
JUST THIS ELIZABETH
It's hard to be judging when
you're curious, Elizabeth.
This prayer goes through you to God.
When I forgive myself it's not me.
Blessing arrives from somewhere
I don't know. Here it is,
a post card in the mail
from my own hand. Post-
marked by the government.
From Holden, traveling with Karen,
in a boat towards my down-lake self.
Deep water unbound in time.
Jim Bodeen
10 September 2019
1969
When news comes on
I grab my bike
and ride the development
Everybody's inside
1969 wasn't my year
I was there in 1968
When I return
I put the bike away
clean the kitchen
Jim Bodeen
29 August 2019
EACH OTHER'S WONDER,
EACH OTHER'S HUMAN
PLIGHT
Dear Sue: Fragments from your Good Gift,
Eudora, first
reading of Eudora Welty's
garden book, her mother's garden first. A stone path
to mother: Her way of
meeting death head on.
Miracle, the Look! See! Mira:
You and me, here.
Text dazzling
like camellias. Like the breadboard,
hand-made. Made. Like the fire
on the raft carrying father. Carrying me
through The Optimist's Daughter,
along with Barry's book, ...there
are Letters.
Forever vulnerable memory alive in us.
The making do of who we are
through flowers older than war.
Jim
5 July 2019
IWAKURA DEDICATION
for Craig
Johnson
He discovers the rope end,
this farmer-sailor, one day
when land-bound he sits
on his tractor. No one
asks about his sailboat,
but this same day,
the man in the desert
calls him for a rope
looking for one
with heft and diameter
that he might wrap
around a stone
for ceremonial purposes.
Unearthing the rope
the farmer thinks its age
a disqualifier. It is the rope
the gardener in the desert
has been looking for.
Stone patience never wavered
waiting for the
rope's arrival.
Jim
29 June
2019
NOTE TO OLIVIER KNOX, PRESIDENT,
WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS' ASSOCIATION
Dear Mr. Knox,
Sad night. Good job.
I took this picture of you
with my IPhone
Karen made the card.
I picked out the stamp
choosing, for you,
Marvin Gaye, What's
Going On?
over two others: Post Office Murals,
and Wild and Scenic Rivers.
All best, Jim
22 May 2019
FURTHER MORE
Rubbing river stones by hand
for their patina keeps me from writing.
Jim Bodeen
22 May 2019
A MOMENT IN FRONT OF OUR TELEVISION
During the White House Correspondents' Dinner
I snapped this photograph of Olivier Knox,
President of the White House Correspondents' Association,
and Karen made this post card
enabling us to witness and record this moment
in our nation's history. The United States
Postal Service has issued new Forever stamps,
three of which I've purchased for these cards
in an edition of six:
Wild and Scenic Rivers, five of which I know;
Post Office Murals, Oklahoma ponies, already mailed;
and Marvin Gaye at the Howard Theatre:
What's going on?
Jim Bodeen
22 May 2019
HOODOO ROCK CAMP GROUNDS
for Jim
Hanlen
We stayed in Teddy's North Dakota park
after they turned off the water. Late October.
I grilled tacos and took photos
of the Missouri River at sunrise.
There were horses. You write
that your father liked rain,
and he's gone like the house.
Let him wander. Trust he's OK.
He's your Father-Dad,
You wouldn't want to find him
any place you could name.
Keep picking up those post cards
in your wild travels. The after-taste
is unforgettable.
Love from
here--jim
21 May 2019
GOD OF RAW DATA
If these pages can serve as witness or rest stop,
for any thing or moment diligently off task,
if they can be a collection point for unconnected details,
or for the getting ready of prayer, seconds of assembly,
let me serve the offering of
their emptiness. If the recording
of raw data aids in listening to my mother, whatever the
task—
the wilder the better—may I work for the God under
and over—and beside too!—oh God Beside Raw Data,
always calling for what is uncovered—
speak to me in words that have no thought of themselves.
Permit me to record what is there—nothing more,
and only that, present to the unconscious breath externally
before me. Any page. Every scrap. The something
behind any fact gives itself up for storm or story. Thank you
for notebooks I turn towards. Bless this practice
and where we’ve been together, intimate and raw
as any beginning lover. Innocence
reclaimed, a photograph that never stood
for a camera. How could it be any other way? Oh, snapshot.
Messy page, crossed out words and second chances.
Jim Bodeen
February 19, 2006
February 19, 2006
MORNING PRAYER
God of Impracticality, God of nothing but truth,
may I be useless in all things, save your service.
Keep me from all action.
May I take care of my dogs.
May they be my only teachers.
May they help me in my nothingness.
May the word be adequate, nothing more.
The poem manifests its way in my hands open before you,
in my commitment to our correspondence.
Provide for me a path of such uselessness
that I am left swirling in daily confusion
conforming only to that which is misunderstood,
and to which I commit to daily
with no sign of affirmation
from you or the world.
Make me the most useless
among any in the world who have eyes.
Jim Bodeen
January 6, 2006
SEE YOU WEDNESDAY AT 8
I don't know your music
so we can't start there.
When the camera went down,
I felt as though a part of me
had gone missing.
Inadequacy of the moment,
sustain me. Even as time gets short
life becomes more intense.
Go figure. Last week,
lost in traffic I couldn't hide.
A moment I can't talk about.
To say that love found me
understates the traffic.
Jim Bodeen
16 January 2018
JAMES BALDWIN AND EL SALVADOR
Not a lot of time. I'm in the middle
of the third biography of Dylan this month.
After all this time. That word again.
Tell me what it's like in lockdown.
Who do you listen to? Beyond the music?
What are you carrying?
I'm guessing two things about your parents.
They don't want you to become nuns or poets.
Choose one, on your own time. No hurry.
Wednesday, then. 1:30?
Jim
16 January 2018
P.S. Like my friend Jody says,
Make your own sign.
We would drive over the mountain pass
into the city in the old Chevy on a Friday evening
with our young family. The radio on
and women talking in firm voices
to disc jockeys about hiding families
from our government in church basements.
Our car would be dark, and our children
fussy and sweaty from the long drive.
My wife and I had worked all day, too.
Even the car was hot and tired.
The Church is a sanctuary,
the women were saying.
Not a place to be blasphemed
by government bullies.
Words seeded themselves in the cushions
of our car seats. These people are Christians
I said to Karen, whispering to her
inside our dark car in traffic. These people
are walking with Jesus.
These are the basement parables.
It would be years before I heard
these voices again. They come to me
at odd times, still waking in the morning
with music coming into our bedroom,
echoes of still signaling courage.
Jim Bodeen
October 22, 2005
FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT
After coffee, before worship,
let's see what happens.
A quarter century ago
I cross a river saying
to myself, Let's see
just how far I can get.
I got a ways.
Thing is I still talk the same.
Jim Bodeen
24 December 2017
HOW IT HAPPENED WITH ANTHONY DE MELLO
What I can't do is tell you anything.
You?
Yes. The you that is me.
Me? OK,
that you that's everybody.
Can't tell you a thing.
What can you do?
The you that is me?
The me that is you.
I can tell what happened.
To you or to me?
Jesus.
Reading a day book.
This guy's name comes up.
Where he says, You can't live
by the light of someone else's lamp.
I liked it but still didn't know, you know?
Nothing? No.
You didn't do anything?
OK, I grinned at what I found.
Nothing more? Words?
Not a word?
What?
Who was he?
Jim Bodeen
17 December 2017
11: 9. THAT'S IT. 11: 9
What's that line in Isaiah?
The Earth is full of God.
Jim Bodeen
9 December 2017
PURSLANE AS SINGLE-ROOTED PARABLE
Don Eduardo y Luz walk us to the
community garden, late September
in Sacramento, where we pick
two kinds of eggplant, berenjena,
a small handful of serranos,
two California chiles, and I grab
the weed I've pulled for half a century in Yakima--
purslane with the tiny yellow flowers--
Jim, Jim, Jim, esta es yerba buena,
la verdolaga. Usamos en ensalada.
Sabroso. I'm wearing a Yerba Buena gorra
from San Francisco. Luz steams
the verdulaga before dinner, adding
it with beets to the salad. Part
of the resistance in her city,
Teología de la liberación es parte
de los raices de Pastor Eduardo.
Leo Los Salmos en nuestra recamarra
antes de dormir. En busqueda
de la felicidad. Gritos y clamores
de protesta. Gritos contra la injustia social.
Temas de Luz y Don Eduardo.
At breakfast Don Eduardo sings
the entire liturgy for me in Spanish.
El libro sobre los salmos está llamandome.
How is your liturgical life?
¿Cómo está su vida litúrgico?
Jim Bodeen
22 November 2017
To: Terry
Martin (E-mail)
Subject: Post Card to
Camp Yakima
Terry and Jane,
It's too fast here.
But wilder than I ever
would have expected.
The Mariners slow down
and then take us late
on too few runs.
I'm not paying
attention anyway.
Email deflects the
truth
and doesn't convey
the message.
The story rests in
tiny cups from China.
Sitting is sitting
they say.
And there's no doubt
about music
coming through all
this noise.
Jim
HARVEST SONG [Psalm 118]
Let the psalm be heard from hop vines
climbing towards September sun
at Cornerstone Ranch where blossoms
ripen for brewing beer. Two friends
at odds stir the mash. What is
the Latin word for brewing?
Bob Marley sings. Here
is the Valley I call home,
my son the one who dries
the flower that flavors the beer.
Tendrils curl towards all
that has been rejected.
Sew the hops into canvas bales.
This is the parable of the fermenting stone.
Jim Bodeen
29 October 2017
IN PRAISE OF PASSING SHOWERS
for
Pastor Phil Nesvig
He was reading those
psalms.
He had just sent a note to
his friend,
the pastor. Responding,
the pastor asked,
What do you mean? The mess
you’ve made
of your life in the pew?
He hadn’t remembered
saying that, couldn’t deny
it now. The pastor had
sent him a passage from
Luther: Let us recall our former
misery and the
darkness—gather in the harvest…God’s word
is like a passing shower
of rain which does not return. Salmo 8:
that was his psalm for today,
his meditation he would carry.
O Señor, has puesto tu
gloria sobre los cielos. Por causa
de tus adversaries has
hecho que brote la alabanza
de labios de los
pequeñitos para silenciar al enemigo.
He found translation in
English not to take him far
enough, his own poverty
necessitated translation
one step more re-moved: Su
dominio, la aves
del cielo, y todo lo que
surca los senderos
del mar. All that swim the
paths of the sea.
Would his friend think
that strange?
Could it be that the
suffering
in the pew came from
places never felt
from pulpit
or choir?
Jim Bodeen
3 November 2017
A PSALM FOR THE YEAR
WE CAME FROM IN THE YEAR
WE ARRIVE AT AGAIN
Waiting outside my grand daughter's
working in the psalter, I fail to ring
the doorbell to find she's already inside.
I don't recommend this to anyone.
These psalms in English and Spanish,
two translations. I say this to give
myself a laugh. 1968 or 2017?
Trick or treat. The Lord's enemies
will be like the beauty of the fields--
las flores silvestres--they will vanish
like smoke--como el humo. Psalm 37.
My thumb is out, a hitch hiker,
calling on the Lord, It's me, It's me.
Love, Jim
"SHALL NO MORE BE DONE?"
--Laertes, Hamlet
This bracelet, made of Old Man's Beard,
by a child, put it in the urn
with my ashes, living word.
This is my life with children.
This is the full response to adults.
My necktie on Facebook.
I'm the empty chair at sit-down dinners.
Absent during the film discussion--
Dinner with André?
What did they discuss on MSNBC?
Hardball with Chris Matthews.
Each resistor resists for children.
Trees are nominated in all categories.
Lichen Ceremonies ask
who you listen to.
Jim Bodeen
12 March 2017
WINDY MAN ON THE KEYBOARD
Talking with Karen earlier
at kitchen table while writing
post cards to the President
for the Ides of March--Boo!
scared you there, Mr. President,
ah, it's just me in Yakima--
My wife says, No, no, no.
I'm not sending any post cards
to him. I want to get back
into this country when I travel.
Jim Bodeen
14 March 2017
SUNSHINE AFTER SOLSTICE
--for
Gretchen, Megan, Suzy, Kirsten
He points his ski pole down the mountain.
That's the way down, but this is the fall line.
Two different paths. Water finds
the fall line. So do your skis.
Release the edges and let them find it;
when they do, let your body follow,
bend into your knees, settle in,
complete your turn. That's the dance,
over and over. A simple
and effortless down up down.
On this snow there is only this snow
and this sky. This run you're riding,
Northern Sky, turns us
liminally, eliminating time.
Jim Bodeen
29 December 2016
A POEM FOR DHEEZUS AND
SAMALAMA,
SKIERS, EXPLORERS &
VIDEOGRAPHERS
Singing Alleluias into the
refrigerator
puts you in Grandpa's Hall of
Fame at nine.
You two grew up on the way to
High Camp.
Samster reads the map of
trails, you sing
your way down Cascade,
memorizing
the runs: Holicade, Tucker
and What.
Paradise Basin itself. Snow
Devil, Vertigo.
Northern Sky and Boulevard,
which takes
you back past High Camp to
Chair Four,
the Double where you wrap
around the bar
and hold on. On this day,
your vision
sees the mountain as a movie
produced
by the two of you. Putting it
together
you say, It's better when we combine ideas.
Grandpa Jim
30 January 2017
FOR MY GRAND DAUGHTER KATIE
WHO DANCES ON SKIS
Watching the rhythm of your
turns
as you descend the mountain,
Kate,
I remember days we skied
before Kindergarten
took you to the academic
school, away
from the imagination of
wilderness.
We studied snow, named bumps moguls.
We shouted to each other,
Turn and go!
as our skis: K2 Indie',
Atomic S-7, K2 Juvie, and
Missie,
grew longer, and took on twin
tips.
We made lunches from home
and packed them in. We talked
about books, dances, and
dreams.
From the first, that's the
way you ski.
Grandpa Jim
30 December 2017
FINDING ONESELF ON POST CARDS AND LINEN
--for Terry, Jane, and Karen
creates epiphanies in mail boxes
and collaboration re-turns to nobility
as an ally in resistance. Toxins
we'd never invite to coffee
sit with us as family. Eyes
remain alert to change in discourse.
Welcome to the Temple of Holy Boldness
and secret anthems. Dangers,
toils and snares
as visiting companions.
Elvis sings, Who could I turn to but the poem.
Karen feeds the birds
and they shit on the deck.
Jane turns birds into clay.
We do words into lines of music.
Jim Bodeen
28 January 2017
GRANDCHILDREN
CASTING AUTOMATONS
On this winter
camp, grand daughters,
cousins, make
movies at night before skiing.
The movie makers
named the hex bugs
as characters in
their movie. Hexbug,
a brand of toy
automaton, attract the kids.
Children like the
touch of bugs
in familiar
rubber, and the way they move
on their own. In
their movie, the children
cast Hex Bugs as
counselors.
Remote controlled
robots
change direction
through head rotation.
Both nine, one
cousin says to the other,
Look at them, these counselors,
running away from our questions.
Jim Bodeen
6 January 2017
MT. SHASTA REST STOP
has a picnic table in shade
and we stop and get out the little Weber grill,
put on four brats with apple and chicken.
Two young men in yellow vests
work the cleanup crew whooping it up
carrying plastic bags, helping each other
with what it is they're charged to do.
Not yet in their 20s we think, watching them.
Soon they smell these brats.
Hot dogs, they
say, pointing to the grill.
We have two extra.
Would you like them?
They run over as I get the buns ready.
Catsup? Mustard? Both.
Karen says,
They've got apple and
chicken inside.
One says, I can taste
the apple.
The other says to his companion,
You're supposed to
say, 'Please', and,' Thank you'.
Didn't you know that?
The man with the dog, smoking a cigarette,
watching us all, walks by, says,
They have just enough
intelligence
for a government job.
Jim Bodeen
20 September 2016
SATURDAY MORNING, TALKING WITH A NEIGHBOR
Blaze lives around the corner
in the next block, walks his dog, Luna
by my place while I'm out
shoveling snow. Give me a little Luna
light, I say, my glasses already dark
from an hour in snow. About that name,
Blaze, I say, can you say something
about those parents who named you?
I can, he says. Mom and Dad
are in Michigan. Dad was in school
studying philosophers. Blaze Pascal
is who I'm named after. Yes, I nod.
"Men never do evil so cheerfully as when
they do it from religious conviction.
Jim Bodeen
10 December 2016
*
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