SONGS OF PRACTICE AND PREPARATION
I. BOATS IN THE
WATER
The boat comes from
the museum shop
in Victoria, British
Columbia, we were
celebrating our 50th
anniversary,
Karen and I, and
picked it out
calling for me to
carry it
to Gary Higgins, one
of Barry’s
deepest friends,
hiker, companion
who carried the
fire, Viet Nam
vet at the same time
as me,
Tet, a marine, we
shared
time and space—and
we went
to the same high
school,
north Seattle. He
was two years
behind me, we didn’t
know,
then. He’s
prominent
in the hiking
notebooks, early on.
He carried fire,
heavy roots.
He was dying when we
ferried
to Victoria.
Crossing water.
I bought the boat
for his crossing
and he had already
disappeared
from us as we left
the ferry.
Here, in Yakima,
it’s hot, 99,
and I’m out back,
having placed
wild Sock-eye Salmon
fillets
on a soaked cedar
plank, new
consumer item
designed
during the time of
droughts
to allow well-to-do
North Americans
Sunday afternoons to
pretend
they have native
practices.
Wood charcoal pieces
cut
side to side. I
smell fish
on my fingers,
grateful
as I lick them,
drawing flies
to the sweetness of
smoke.
Aroma comes from
Weber Grill,
sweet cedar and
salmon. Good
smoke, medicine
smoke,
fighting for itself
during a time
of big fires. Air
vents mostly closed
keeping heat low.
Higgins
is dying and we’ve
lost contact,
unable to see him,
the little boat
with its hand carved
oars, now
a gift for his old
friend, altered
and altared, sacred
vessel
for the living. This
was in the year
before the plague, I
believe now
we have lost track
of time before
the pandemic, such
uncertainty
in these lines. I am
drinking iced tea,
stems and branches
from Japan,
a gift from Mayumi.
This morning
I bicycled around
the development
when temperatures
were low,
mid 80s. For the
past two weeks
I’ve been writing
an essay--
an attempt—on a
book of poems
on the weather, with
hand-painted
international
weather symbols
by an artist, the
book called
Rain Violent, a
collaboration
between mother and
son.
The mother, Ann
Spiers, the poet.
I have tasted the
fish.
Nobody deserves a
meal
like the one I am
preparing here.
A small plane
overhead. Everyone
lives indoors now.
Smoky,
even beyond my
garden full of large
trees, working hard
to turn
toxins back into
oxygen.
It is spooky. I
believe
it is spooky for the
large trees,
too, the Jaquemonte
Birches,
Autumn Blaze
canopied over us,
and the two
Bloodgood Maples.
Large and small
trees together.
The small ones
bonsais in lovely pots,
suffering greatly in
heat, suffering
and dying, their
fired clay
serving as furnaces
instead of beauty.
Clay boats for the
journey,
reminding me of the
time after
World War II, when
Japanese gardeners
orphaned their trees
to avoid suspicion
by the conquerors.
Some of these,
survivors, have been
restored
and collected by a
community
of Japanese and
American artists
in a new bonsai
gallery near Seattle.
I have taken my
grandchildren
to see these bonsais
now under shade
of an old growth
forest.
There is space for
speechlessness
in any poem, if one
goes slow enough.
When Barry came by,
he gave me
a small book for my
birthday.
Barry is the poet of
birthdays
and he’s been
bringing me poems
for 45 or 46 years.
He’s practicing
The Art of Peace by
Morihei Ueshiba,
founder of Aikido.
The book
is smaller than your
Iphone
and fits in its
hollowed
glass screen like a
passenger
in a cyber boat (I’m
looking
at this now, broken
circle brush
stroke on yellow
paint.
We are not children,
and we do
and we don’t
practice like children.
We have the
children’s love of repetition
as part of our
practice. The salmon
has yielded up its
flavor,
and the soaked, red
cedar plank
it’s moisture and
bouquet.
Karen and I will
breathe this in
as I put on my
gloves
and take this dark
treasure-pink
sweetness inside to
our table.
Our table of
gratitude a blessingway.
The neighborhood,
is, to be frank,
also spooky, and
needs to be sung for
and blessed, prayed
over,
if that is your
language.
I’m bringing in
another here,
entering the house,
a threshold,
the singer Frank
Mitchell,
buried in Chinle,
Arizona. He
is a Navajo
Blessingway Singer,
and his way is to
sing us whole,
perhaps you’ve
felt his presence
in this poem. He is
here
from start to
finish. He’s singing
for Gary and all of
us. This way,
a way of peace, a
way of practice,
you might call
another way
of being the same
way, however
one gets to source,
and one, and peace.
Peace and blessings
to all living things.
Jim Bodeen
3-6-9 August 2021
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