PIECES OF STRING
There are pieces of string
too short to save.
There is also a box
for pieces of string
too short to save.
Jim Bodeen
30 April 2018
We better praise this, too!
THE SORROW OF THE LEFT HAND
The left-hander at Bible Study
has all of my attention.
We share the same world.
He doesn't want to move
because he's left-handed.
Me and this woman here
we didn't get to do some things,
but stayed with it--
we stayed.
When I tell him, I'm left-handed too,
he says, Oh no! I've known
a couple of prominent ones--
what I have to say
is not complimentary.
I know those two myself, I say,
remembering Presidential debates
ten years ago. How can I say
either guy won,
in the wake of
the tsunami that followed?
Jim Bodeen
24 April 2018
Window Well in the Carnegie Library
SITTING IN THE WINDOW WELL
OF THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY IN PITTSBURGH
READING AND WRITING IN MY NOTEBOOK
CANCELLING THE MUSEUM SCHEDULE
I'm going to just sit here
reading Sam Hamill's
Gratitude and Dumb Luck poems.
The librarian said I could take
as many books as I wanted
and sit in those soft leather chairs
and leave them when I finished.
in the museum from here in the stacks.
She walked me up back stairs
to August Wilson's work. She didn't know
she had taken me home. Fool
that I am I didn't know myself.
I knew I'd found gold, doubting
I could sit among people reading
without distractions, surrounded
by treasure. As she
left,
she says, Look out those windows
you can see the dinosaur below
in the history museum.
That's how I got here,
to this window sill, tucked away.
Distractions and dumb luck.
Jim Bodeen
20 April 2019
IN THE HISTORIC DISTRICT
WITH JIM AND ERICA
Nuzzling Tortilla
Uniontown notebook days
Kitchen table spring
Jim
25 April 2018
May All Your Gateways Dream Free
UP ON BEDFORD AVENUE
The word for this, in steady
decline for 200 years. Rendezvous.
A dream from the past.
The children were small.
Liner notes were everywhere.
My wife kept walking.
There was a Sunday coffee,
but what to do with the temple talk?
This was Pittsburgh
in the Century of August Wilson.
Jim Bodeen
April 25, 2018
April 25, 2018
The Week Sam Hamill Died
JUST OFF I-70 WEST
Way back, back by steps,
stepping off 40, away again
from the national road
the Pike and national way
past Cumberland towards
the American trail
and Nemacolin's path,
rivers and watersheds connect.
Sam Hamill is dead. Gone six days.
Take the Buffalo Church Road.
Language telling me hard coal is smokeless.
Bring me a couple of Indian ponies.
Dreams here surface on their own.
People buried on this hill
all live so close to one another.
Peonies surface after long winter between stones.
Two brothers pack a bale of top soil
and plants for their parent's grave.
This is Clayville. Henry Clay
spent a night here, they say.
William McGuffey's ours.
School district's named for him
on account of the McGuffey Reader.
An agreement's been reached and
a third party is present. We'll assemble
together. A woman sitting in shade
watching her husband mow stops me
and I ask my question. The man says,
You can see it from here,
but getting there's another story.
There is a better road, he tries again.
I don't want to get there too soon.
No, he says, Too much daylight.
The past as present is a reckoning.
May all your fences have gates.
Sam's been gone all of six days.
I don't think he's ever going to leave us,
me and this little stack of books
in the window sill, this side
of the dinosaur looking down on the people.
Jim Bodeen
20 April 2019
Oral History: Phyllis Hoenhous and the Generations
Gerri Hoenhous Omli: Phyllis Hoenhous' 100th Birthday
Born 13 February 1918 in Coteau, North Dakota, Phyllis
Hoenhaus became the matriarch of a large family in Washington State. On her
100th birthday celebration, her daughter, Gerri Omli Hoenhaus, honors her
legacy at a celebration in Bothell, Wa.
Phyllis Hoenhous and the Grandkids
When a snow storm in the Cascades shut down I-90, half of
our family had to turn around and go home. Two days later, four lucky grandkids
get to spend the morning with Aunt Phyllis, and have lunch. They get to know
her. She gets to know them. Oral history at its best from the North Dakota
diaspora of the 1950s, Aunt Phyllis is our family's matriarch. Here she is entertaining some of our grandkids during the week of her 100th birthday celebration.
Grandchildren and the Tea Ceremony
After celebrating with Aunt Phyllis who just turned 100 years old, four of my grandchildren and I stop in Seattle's International District for a Tea Ceremony before returning home to Yakima, What becomes a part of these children after today is part of the great wonder.
HIGH MOUNTAIN GREEN TEA
Clean table, clean stomach
After visiting Aunt Phyllis,
After lunch with her.
After leaving, saying our goodbyes,
we drive downtown
across from Owajamaya,
in the International District
for tea ceremony.
I’ve called ahead.
Clean table,
clean stomach.
After tea, we take pictures.
The kids get some tea
to take home. Each grandchild
with her own small bag of fresh leaves.
We go next door for dumplings.
The ride to Yakima is mostly quiet.
Jim Bodeen
14 April 2018
LINES TO ACCOMPANY THE ORAL HISTORY PRESENTATION
OF PHYLLIS HOENHOUS BY GERRI HOENHOUS OMLI
ON HER MOTHER’S 100TH BIRTHDAY
Aunt Phyllis was my Dad’s sister.
I lived with her for almost two years
after I graduated from high school in 1963,
Dad was transferred to Huntsville, Alabama
to work on the Saturn project.
Mom, Dad, Chuck and Vonnie
went to Alabama in fall, 1963.
They were in Alabama until early 1969.
Phyllis and Dad lived in Coteau, North Dakota,
about six miles from Bowbells.
There’s no town left, but there’s
a county cemetery where Dale’s
twin brother, Darold, is buried. Phyllis
held it all together in my book—
my way of looking at things.
Phyllis and Mom fished together in Alaska.
Phyllis and Mom attended Seattle Mariners
spring training games twice.
Phyllis said they were like sisters.
Both of them mothered me
in different ways.
Speaking of how one sees things.
Phyllis has lost her vision in both eyes.
You can’t tell this from the video.
She listens to books on tape
and loves them. Why bring this up?
I ask this myself. She’s still learning
how to see this way. Understanding
this, helps one understand how sharp
her vision enters the room
and shapes a conversation.
God knows more about this
than we do. Children listening
for what comes now
in new time, time folding itself
back and forth. Phyllis mixing it all,
who’s here, who’s not, differences
shredding definitions, banging synapses.
How does Phyllis obliterate
the world we’ve brought with us
into the room? What is a generation?
Other questions have to do with me?
Maybe you’re listening down the road.
Perhaps you’ve already lost track
of the kids. If you haven’t,
what do you remember of their lives?
What paths did they find?
Which ways opened for which ones?
Returning to Phyllis, the more I see
of her here, the more I want to listen to threads
she hasn’t had time to reach and give us.
Maybe, too, she’s the only editor that counts.
She’s left in what she wants to keep.
And us, in the room?
We’ve only had 100 years to listen.
What distinguishes this from nostalgia?
This conversation. Who do you talk with
who carries conversation better?
My own joy can’t hide. Deflect?
Delete? Too much? What gets lost
if you take out what brings Phyllis closer?
Gerri gave a remarkable speech
at the Birthday party, oral history
by a daughter who has paid attention,
and that, too, has been videotaped.
She says things I didn’t know.
I’ve listened half a dozen times
and still don’t have it.
Could this be? Could this really be?
Gerri’s presentation details major points
of Phyllis’ life, and I’m so glad
we got there in time to hear it.
Most of our family had to turn back
the day of the birthday party
because of snow in mountains.
The party was held on Saturday,
17 February, in Bothell, Wa.
Three cars of our family had to
turn back. Karen and I turned around
in Ellensburg, came back
and went over White Pass,
arriving after the meal
and just before Gerri spoke
and the kids came up and sang
Iust in time to see Phyllis, to hear Gerri.
To listen to the kids sing.
Roads improved, and on Monday
Josh, Kate, Sam & Dee got over the pass.
That was time, too.
Part of what the kids experienced
is part of who you are too.
What does, Who’s here? mean? Any way?
Jim Bodeen
10- 14 April 2018
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