RIDING THE NORTHERN SKY WITH CHILDREN

FOLLOWING CHILDREN DOWN THE MOUNTAIN

On skis, watching their snow lines

falling, each of them with their own dance

and way forward, knowing they've found this

with no language. Their rhythm

born from their eyes and pursuit of the other.

No one has told them, Set your edge, release your edge.

Roll your ankles means nothing.

Find a steeper line and down up down

doesn't sound like song to me. Only this,

Have fun. How can you ski

if you're not singing? Find the music.

Turn and go is what we do. Over

and over. Turn and go. Children

seeking bumps and trails through trees.

Jim Bodeen

11 January 2017

TWO POST CARDS

WHERE EVERYWHERE WAS FAR

We went out of bounds twice

East then West, a quick duck

under the rope lifting it with a ski pole

as our skis slid into the pristine.

Still in solstice light, side swipe

of altered space cast shadows

of alpine trees. We had come

for these shade-lanes with our tiny

cameras, eyes behind

solar lenses aiding distortion.

Our hands, clumsy in gloves,

could only pretend to compose.

Wind caused flurries of crystal

storm and clouds hid the sun

at will. We gave ourselves

time to be this blind,

unmindful of shutter speed

and focus, recording light

we only guessed at,

two steps into wild.

Jim Bodeen

31 December 2016

WET WINTER EVENING IN THE NORTHWEST 

She reads to her husband in the living room

of Emmett Till, and I hear of it

when his poem arrives in the mail.

Where we live, Emmett Till

is a household name, but details

of his long night before the hanging

get murky. The poem in my mailbox also

praises a Danish teacher for his quiet

resistance and courage. So much

has been lost we thought we had won.

Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees,

for crows to pluck, Billie's song.

Reading aloud is a Victorian rite

freezing our accounts and computers.

Jim Bodeen

24 December 2016

ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY

ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY TO SMILE

Every time Karen walks into a room.

Jim Bodeen

November-December-January, 2016-2017

In and Out of Notebooks

ALL MORNING

in and out of notebooks

the day unfolding in paper

leaves fallen ones bound

in and out in and out

with no purpose

and then with purpose equally

at odds a kind of windlessness

no purpose being

where words found

bring with them something

no news can carry

but what we come for

I know this has nothing

but everything but by God

it's hard it is and it isn't

courage it's outside

of the dreaming known

to go there

never mind to get there

Jim Bodeen

5 January 2017

I settle on a letter

a foundation

a kind of platform

the kind of thing

one does leaving

the office to those

left behind oh yes

a letter to a writer

of columns relatively

famous with a father

who asked for no quarter

other than learn a language

and a brother on a boat

this woman speaks to me

and I want to say thanks

with all that can be mustered

she lives in the city of politicians

and willfulness and this is all

what I give myself to

writing her trying for nothing

more giving it my all

I tell her what

I found there over time

Jim Bodeen

5 January 2017

READING W.S. MERWIN'S GARDEN TIME

WITH GRANDMA AND GRANDKIDS

ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL

Temperature in the car

reads -6 degrees outside

but it's tropical inside

surrounded by generations

ancestors we lost track of

addressing memory

music entering the right ear

where I'm placed in the trees

of being, the boy who is me

years and decades ago

walking the gravel road

just outside of city limits

in the North Dakota town

BB gun in hand

just past Shit Creek

and that yellow Meadowlark

on the fence post singing

This morning Karen driving

sun coming up on snow-covered

hills the purple sky behind us

me with the Merwin poems

in the passenger seat

accompanying all this

I read one line aloud

turning to the children

but happiness has a shape made of air

Karen saying, Explain that one,

wondrous invitation,

it was never owned by anyone

it comes when it will in its own time

Me trying to hang on to just this

for now it doesn't matter

without in fact getting it

or not surrounded as I am

Jim Bodeen

6 January 2017

Wang Wei As A Form of Foreshadowing

WITH MORE WAYS

God isn't through with me yet

we say in Recovery.

My friends send poems.

My defense shield has failed.

19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei,

indeed, Eliot Weinberger.

I've just been presented

with 18 ways by God to laugh.

Don't you dare, I say,

as he brings mother

into the room

sitting her before me.

Jim Bodeen

16 November 2016

AFTERNOON IN THE GOBI-RATTLER ROOM

22 DAYS AFTER THE ELECTION

So many possibilities for distraction

following everyone I can.

Jim Bodeen

30 November 2016

Winter Shelter Confrontation

AT THE SHELTER

I ASK THE NATIVE MAN

IF I CAN HELP HIM

PUT DOWN HIS MATTRESS

No, I ain't sleeping

next to no white man

They snore and fart

He waves away the room,

Ah, I'm only kidding

Jim Bodeen

2 January 2017

Sunshine After Solstice

SO MUCH SNOW AND LOST GLOVES

Not by the pair, but singles.

Singles and socks, too much to keep straight.

But we had it all, grandchildren weightless

on skis in powder so light

the hold on gravity is gone.

The way out mirrors mountain

descent. Windshield fogged

like our goggles, all of us

giggling, windshield iced

forcing wipers to close hard

in a smaller arc. The cave

is here, warmed by insulation

from frozen water, bounty

of blankets wrapping our

falling selves in dream field.

Jim Bodeen

2 January 2016 

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