TO THIRD BURROUGHS WITH MY BROTHER
FOUR YEARS AFTER HIS WIFE'S CROSSING
"...So pour out the whole cup, offering to a river and
its moon"
Su Tung-P'o
Two days from the exact day, four years ago,
this tundra walk on the great mountain, Tahoma,
still hidden from maps, high enough to put us
in telephone range with our wives at lunch below. Changed
now, we leave Yakima under crescent moon
in the eastern sky. Third Burroughs still listed
on the map, with no access trail. My brother,
me, erasing time, with time, still, a prompt.
Sunrise. East side. East Slope Su. My recluse
search kept on, David Hinton translating
the Sung poet, arduous exile
tried for treason, wandering like water
with his inner pattern, weaving together,
never sounding like the
last word,
every gesture in a
poem is wilderness,
these last two lines leaving me perpetually
breathless in the poem, walking alone,
walking with my brother. This day,
my brother, turning to me, asking:
"Where
is Dad?"
"Oh, Chuck. No."
He's been talking to the others,
the believers, literal one. "'The smoke,'
Dad said, his last words. Where is he?"
No, Chuck. No. He's
not.
There's no such place.
Listen,
Dad visits me. Once in
a while,
in dreams. He's ok.
He's so quiet.
Sometimes I don't even
notice he's there.
Don't see him. He's
off to the side,
kind of like he was as
our Dad,
in a lawn chair. Legs
crossed.
Smoking. That
half-smile.
Oh, brother! Come up
from
the dream-world,
Father.
Show thyself!
Our
father,
dead forty years, when this surfaces
tundra-hiking, to the Burroughs,
I didn't know, stopping, shouts
from the three Philippine women
tagging with us to the rocks above,
calling for us to take their photos--
OK, now you're part
of us, I say
after the photographs. Dramatic
talk,
conversation as
adventure, we're
in the middle of
what's wild, my brother
and I, you've walked
into this, no stopping,
Chuck, my brother, our
Father is not in Hell.
No burning place like
that, exists, Jesus,
God, Jesus-God
wouldn't permit it,
now I've said it. Three angel-women
immigrants walk with my brother, listening.
We are Catholic in
Philippines. Catholic,
Muslim, Buddhist, yes.
Surrounding him
this moonwalk gives way to testimony.
My brother telling his story, his loss,
our hike here four years ago, holding
to shreds of possibility before the crossing.
Third Burroughs, we show them, above glacier,
below Tahoma, cutting a sandwich,
peanut butter and peach jam into pieces
for us all, and we have little fishes
dried in salt and vinegar. A young man,
Joshua, from Israel sits with us on stones,
and a young couple from New Zealand
down from British Columbia. To be outside
together, among the young. Snyder, Chatwin,
Kerouac. Who are the
poets from Philippines?
The caregiver who takes care of the old man
and the M.S. patient, wraps two slices of salami
around a chunk of mango and hands it to me.
Everything on the
table now. We're inside
heavenly dreams now, John Lennon.
The way my brother says, My
Lord,
evokes Aretha, singing for the crossing-all-of-us.
Jesse praying, If you
leave here today
and don't register to
vote, you're disrespecting
Aretha. My sweet
Lord. Su Tung-p'o,
East Slope himself: Clever
wise ones ruin'd me--
I have old friends in those mountains,
and they keep calling
me home.
Jim Bodeen
1-6 September, 2018
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