Falls, Butterflies, Children and Politics

COMET FALLS HIKE, MOUNT RAINIER

My brother only slows

for Salmon Berries, ripe and orange,

mid week, mid August, he knows

this mountain where we bring

what we've lost, feet on the ground,

paradise with switchbacks

and elevation gain, only

a couple of miles off road,

and after a record snowfall

we arrive in time

harvesting water and light.

So much light inside the light.

Milton talked about this

and we remember, this light

interpenetrating light.

He was talking about angels

and how they make love

without elbows and knees.

Water over us and on us,

my brother surrounded,

light-soaked, takes one step

towards the vision

receiving him. He wobbles

once, unbalanced,

trekking poles

holding him to stone.

Jim Bodeen

15-18 August 2017

COMET FALLS PHOTOGRAPHER

Her tripod set between trees

after the last switchback

looking into the falls

in her early 20s.

My brother and I

stop for a last look

from where we stepped

behind the fallen world.

I'd love to take your picture

she says. I have uncles

with your same names.

In the last year

I lost 95 pounds.

I'm still learning how to see.

Jim Bodeen

18 August 2017

BRINGING GRAND DAUGHTERS

TO PARADISE ON MT. RAINIER

Roots and their surfacing network

make steps for children

and hiding places for chipmunks.

They know trail mix

in their packs can't be shared.

They walk the trail

the week caterpillars arrive

in wild flowers. It becomes

their trail mission to keep each one

from being stepped on.

Walking with pastoral ears, prophetic voices,

they hear rumors.

How many senators again?

They're ten.

What's real and what's fake

is sharp, nothing blurred,

Their selfless acts of witness

bring butterflies into our politics.

Jim Bodeen

August, 2017

THE LONGEST DAY

SATURDAY IS THE LONGEST DAY

Thoreau, lost in Mt. Katahdin fog

caresses us all in the wildest moment

of his life--and this is recorded,

news lovers. The dream

I wake from prompts me, Don't laugh.

Jesus man meets me at the Railroad Station

that sells five dollar coffees. He promises

passing rain showers, Don't miss the chance

to be re-freshed. This is the Gospel Hour.

From the back yard garden I hear

train whistles, feel the stress of bonsai

trees during the record heat wave.

Jim Bodeen

12 August 2017

STEPPING ON STONES

THE SCHOOL IN THE STEPPING STONES

Block by block through the Imperial City.

Tagged by medics when they were brought in,

the words for where, "...Near Hue,"

during a firefight. We were south,

in Qui Nhon, the evac hospital

that took GIs hit during this particular

Year of the Monkey. January 31, 1968.

I'm skiing in Japan on R&R

a resort called Zao, near

where Basho walked on his way

North. Ignorant of Basho,

ignorant of Hue, but those mortars

hitting the airfield on my return

remain with me still. Basho

where I walk, black pine, rock,

running water, book.

Ink in every book. I stood

on the citadel eight years ago,

returning, trying to imagine

revolution with modern weapons.

Impossible task. One who stood

with us in the rain, fell,

broke her ankle.

Tourist evac'd from the Sacred City.

My job in Qui Nhon.

Trying to imagine.

Moral injury is language

we use today, listening now

to casualties from all sides.

Jim Bodeen

9 August 2017

Lines for Eternity, Lines for SGT Major Pendergrass

LINES FOR THE GINGER MAN, LINES FOR ETERNITY:

REMEMBERING SERGEANT MAJOR THOMAS PENDERGRASS

He flew to Seattle to be with me on my birthday.

50 years ago tomorrow. Career soldier.

The Ginger Man, Hemingway. James Jones.

Father, too. Like Writer-Dad.

Pendergrass by the Hemingway statue in Pamplona

in the black & white photo in my hand.

But before that. SFC Pendergrass,

already in Panama, when I arrived.

I was 20. And how lost?

Heaven help the ginger man.

He gave me that book.

The Ginger Man: I'm sick of people.

The less I have to do with them

for the rest of my life the better.

I don't care if I die. Had I found

that book? Pendergrass put it in my hand.

And then brought James Jones'

From Here to Eternity. Just months

before, in basic training, I was locked

into my uniform by Army chaplains,

saying, We believe in this war.

P-Grass, drinking 15 cent beers with me

in the Em Club while I learned

my way in the government hospital.

I hadn't only lost as a pacifist.

I'd lost Karen by being a fool.

I found myself in Robert E. Lee Pruitt, Jr.

Pendergrass cancelled his own writing

to listen to mine. I memorized Stevens

and Eliot, reciting; I found the difference

between triage and evacuation. Only way

to Karen went through Viet Nam.

We could drive. With orders, in a VW

through Central America--crossing

into Mexico from Guatemala on a Sunday.

Border closed until we paid la mordita.

Seeing Oaxaca from the South.

Where are we? The career soldier

would get us to Texas, where we

would both go home. But this soldier-

writer GI, would fly to Seattle,

50 years ago today, to be with me,

with Karen, with family on my birthday,

my 22d, born the day Fat Boy

dropped the bomb on Nagasaki,

making me sicker now than it did then.

Mom and Dad were at that dinner.

But it was the soldier who flew

with me to California to ride the 747

to war.  Heaven help the Ginger Man.

Get out and push like the rest.

The war would come to us at Tet

at different places. Evacuation

would become sustaining marrow.

Evolving, organic. Hand carried,

hand delivered, by a soldier carrying books.

Jim Bodeen

8 August 2017

POEMS TO BURN

MOULDERING HEADBAND

FOR THE AUGUST MOON

Sing crumbling song

Soothe the throat

with some butterscotch

Jim Bodeen

THE MAN ON THE CORNER

WHO FLIES THE TRUMP FLAG

INCORRECTLY BELOW THE STARS AND STRIPES?

He's a hire.

Jim, you don't know that!

I do.

It was revealed.

I trust the source.

Jim Bodeen

THIS WAKING

He couldn't shake it

He couldn't make it be known

This hot parched burning

Jim Bodeen

AFTER A BICYCLE RIDE

EARLY SUNDAY MORNING

            "I'm so sorry you have a neighbor

    who flies the Trump flag." A friend

It's easier to drive by

the flag

than it is to enter

the sanctuary

and sit in the pew

Jim Bodeen

DREAMING THE SYLLABLE COUNT

I was there but I wasn't

I wasn't there but I was

The body is the bread of heaven

The place where God speaks

Jim Bodeen

August 3-8, 2017

Premier of Vietnam, A film by Lynn Novick and Ken Burns interviews by En...

THE END OF CONVERSATION BEGINS HERE,

HERE BEING THE VIETNAM WAR,

NOTES AND FRAGMENTS

FROM KEN BURNS, LYNN NOVICK, TIM EGAN,

KARL MARLANTES, ENRIQUE CERNA

AND TABLE TALK DURING THE PREMIER

OF VIETNAM, THE NOVICK-BURNS FILM

TEN YEARS IN THE MAKING

I. The Luncheon Conversation

We believe, Burns says, that America's

involvement in Vietnam is the most important event

in the second half of the Twentieth Century. Our

courageous conversation began in 2006.

The current White House is obsessed with leaks

like drunken sailors. History doesn't repeat itself,

but it certainly rhymes. This was a decade of agony.

It went on because it seemed easier to muddle through.

We hope to show you today, how we set the table.

Lynn Novick adds, Our country is awash

in un-processed trauma. Our efforts here

try to show there's no one truth in war.

Tim Egan, moderating asks about

grotesque inequality. He asks if this film

attempts to change the narrative of the country.

In a democracy one adds, you only have

so much time to win the war. New scholarship

over the past 40 years provides the distance

needed to have the conversation. We forget

that Ho Chi Minh was once a pastry chef in Boston.

Keep historians out. Talk to people involved.

You can find the evidence to find

what you want either way, Novick says.

The war took on a wisdom of its own.

Burns compliments. There was not

a governor on the engine of their enthusiasm.

Everything is available, Novick says.

Remember, Burns says,

There were three nations. Now there are two.

II. Conversation After the Film's Premier

Public Broadcasting convenes the conversation.

Investing in talk that makes us smarter as a nation.

Ken Burns confronts disunion, and lack of civility,

claiming it began with the Vietnam War.

He says, PBS has been his home for forty years.

But he's not that old!

Nine-Inch Nails and Yo Yo Ma

contribute to the music.

120 pieces of music in these 18 hours of film.

They ask the artists and the bands

for permission to use the music.

To an artist, every one said Yes.

Burns calls it the best music

in the history of the world.

Jimi Hendrix's family is in the audience tonight.

Is Burns excited about this?

Lock the doors, he says.

We're going to show all eighteen hours tonight.

You'll get out of here sometime tomorrow afternoon.

He outlines the format: 9 clips, 52 minutes.

Then Carl Marlantes with he and Novick,

Enrique Cerna asking questions.

We see Marlantes' unit on Hill 484.

We hear him talk about ghosts and ancestors.

Bring them out and embrace them.

Everyone in the theatre, my generation,

give or take, with crossover.

Many with wives, husbands.

Ones who came home.

A kind of synchronicity with anyone

sitting next to you.

Different than being at the Wall.

Something happening. Something to carry.

Jim Bodeen

26-28 July 2017

SO MANY STOPS

THE LOST HAIKU

Emerging from dream

Disappearing syllable

Daily walk in song

Song in many stops

Invisible second line

Breathing counting beats

Beat-counting mourning

Summer stop into waking

Second line of song

Where does the missing line walk

Jim Bodeen

21 July 2017