Storypath/Cuentocamino: : EVERYTHING IS A GREAT FAMILY TOGETHER
Storypath/Cuentocamino: : EVERYTHING IS A GREAT FAMILY TOGETHER: EVERYTHING IS A GREAT FAMILY TOGETHER TEXT FOR STILL PICTURES Graduation time and this year two of our grandchildren, cousins of twin...
BOATS ON A HOSPITAL WALL
BOATS ON A HOSPITAL WALL
[While the beloved is in surgery, the man stands in front of a triptych of fused glass called Healing Hands * Caring Heart, by the artist Richard La Londe. The Triptych is a gift to Good Samaritan Hospital, Puyallup, Washington from the artist, and was installed in 2005.]
--an empty journey on that Star River raft
--..and immortals set out again in their boat.
Autumn Thoughts, Tu Fu, trans. By David Hinton
I. A hand pulls back a sea-green curtain
The curtain is a waterfall
a river fish jumping white water
to the ocean. Morning sun fish
before outstretched eagle wings
above it all Star River Milky Way breath
breathing cloud breath birthing
below it all
boat water birth canal
hand-held pouring water forth
two-person boat
heads streaming electricity
hand-held horns
rocking on water
the two of them
the multiplicity
waves and hands
II. Cloud Breath River
winds around sun and mountain
snow-fed rivers like hands are hands
holding, housing hand-held water boat
palms up issuing sun-life water colors
hands underneath the boat
part-boat, part of the boat
two faces, three lidded eyes
one-eye issuing water force
back in, or from water, all ways
house and mountain
forested and radiant and rocking dream-held
III. Green waterfall curtain
held back, pulled back,
eyes uncertain on right side
eyes, three of them open
three hands head river holding
planet held by an upper hand
waterfall a kind of vestment
green gown
red heart hand drawn
blood filled those same green
oxygenated and unclear and undefined
Jim Bodeen
11 May-14 June 2024
EVERYTHING IS A GREAT FAMILY TOGETHER
EVERYTHING IS A GREAT FAMILY TOGETHER
TEXT FOR STILL PICTURES
Graduation time and this year two of our grandchildren,
cousins of twin daughters, graduate. They’re 18.
Hamburgers on the grill. Back yard, family.
Sitting beneath shade trees in a garden.
A dozen years ago, Karen and I were on retreat
in the North Cascade mountains
in a former copper mine turned retreat center.
A blackout of news was suspended
with news of kindergarten children murdered
in their school at Sandy Hook. My wife
had recently made me a Pendleton vest
with Chief Joseph patterned fabric.
Brown, gold, I will fight no more forever.
On the boat ride out of the mountains,
we asked each other what we should do.
Karen would make a Chief Joseph vest
to fit the children from Sandy Hook,
lining it with their names. Our grandchildren
would wear it for them.. We had to see. During
its making, our youngest granddaughter
had tonsillitis, and spent the day with Grandma.
Our grandson would come from Karate, followed
by his cousin, who would come from dance lessons.
We made a movie that day trying to understand.
The kids read poems by Yeats and William Blake
sewn into vest pockets. Twelve years later,
it’s graduation day. There’s cake and poetry.
This is what it’s like.
Jim Bodeen
11 June 2024
MEDITATION ON VIOLENCE; KAREN BODEEN'S CHIEF JOSEPH VEST
https://storypathcuentocamino.blogspot.com/search?q=MEDITATION+ON+VIOLENCE+CHIEF+JOSEPH+VEST
STEPPING OUT, A COMMENCING FOR KATIE
STEPPING OUT, A COMMENCING FOR KATIE
--Search into the inner-pattern of things:
Isn’t it joy?
Tu Fu*
You text me with news of fresh limes
in ice water wondering what you might
call it. You can’t know what joy
this gives a grandfather watching you
walk into this unexplored world,
discovering image by image, your eyes
opening to yourself, refreshed
and astonished. I’ve been given
these gifts, too! Katie, you are
all dance and dharma, water
colors and paintbrush. You,
the camera and the shutter speed.
Aperture and depth of field.
You with the voice of many talents--
Yes, you have, this is you,
brave one before yourself,
--Oh, my gosh!
Love Grandpa
7 June 2024
*translation by David Hinton
-
LOOKING INTO POOLED WATER AND THE HOME OF THE BIG FISH WHERE JOSH GOES
LOOKING INTO POOLED WATER
AND THE HOME OF THE BIG FISH WHERE JOSH GOES
..why not
sink poems deep into Sun-Weave River,
talk things over?
Tu Fu, At Sky’s End
You give me clues to your nature
with each fish you release into wild
water, Josh. The character
you recognize in the fish
is what you seek to know in yourself.
You are one of the living creatures
inhabiting Turtle Island. Not all who seek
ever find themselves in water. Still,
these same ones, whether in neckties
or Carhartts, will call themselves
teachers, owners, executives. Ones
with savvy, like yourself and your buddies,
know what happens to fishermen
hanging their rods too close to Red’s
on the Yakima.. These books of poems
for your graduation, both by Gary Snyder, Listen!
Put the little one, Turtle Island,
in the glove box of your truck--
The big one, hard cover, carry it
to college and into the shop—it contains
everything that’s ever been written
about what’s wild.
Love you so much, Gpa
Jim
7 June 2024
GATE, PATH, BOAT, CLOUD, BIRD
GATE, PATH, BOAT, CLOUD, BIRD
Ten thousand boats
useless beneath the sky
Du Fu*
Robins in the Juneberries
fly wild between house and branch
using rooftop as a place to launch
at sunrise. Red berries
don’t stand a chance at burgundy
Blossoms from China Snow
hang heavy bending branches
over the street when I walk
through inside gate in North Park
pollen falling yellow
all over my hat, over brim
onto my eye brows
making me sneeze
Out back under paper birches
eating berries with milk
I look up when Karen comes out
walking with her eyes, and says,
It’s it's--I don’t know where to sit
Jim Bodeen
6 June 2024
*Answer to a Letter from my Brother about the Floods,
translated by David Young
TRANSPORTATION OF STONES
TRANSPORTATION OF STONES
The red wheelbarrow
Rusting out on the cusp of
his 79th birthday
Jim Bodeen
3 June 2024
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
