Two poems for February (and they aren't about love)

Here are two more poems from college days. If anything, I hope they show that there is something interesting about the monochromatic high desert landscape. Both were published in contest issues of the New Era magazine in the 1980s.

The title of the first poem should be read as its first line. That was one way of dealing with the fact that I don't like coming up with titles. :)



In February

wind wears the ice
hoarded by hills and stone
spins sagebrush into gray phrases
thins like needles
of ponderosa shadow




February Solstice

Fog strays into predawn sage,
Stratum of night unshaping.

Crone-hands uncurl the revelation
of cottonwoods' naked grasp.

Her fingers thin into wind,
Groping for transparent spring.

Late Winter

'Most people probably hope that winter is nearly over; before the season's change, I decided to share a simple description of sunset over a snow-covered landscape. "Late Winter" was one of the first poems I wrote in college. It was published years later in the December 2004 New Era.


Late Winter

Soft fire melts into blue embers
that speak of snow.
Winter breathes its dialogue
with latent earth, white phrases
contoured by prisoned shadow--
a slow sweep, a pulse
molding the rhythm of star and moon
as they spin towards dawn.



I'll never forget how my creative writing professor challenged students to look at the world with new eyes, to tune into our senses as we tried to create images that could evoke emotions. Life wasn't easy then, but I sometimes achieved greater awareness and recognized the beauty of familiar faces and the surroundings that I had often taken for granted.

Thinking about the past, I am reminded to slow down and pay more attention to unique people and simple things that shape my life now. It's vital to creativity which in turn yields joy and gratitude. It's vital to the life most of us hope for as we reach out with love.

Thoughts on Valentine's Eve

Older kids can complain all they want about how hard they had it compared to their younger siblings but I keep telling our young adult children that we used to have lots more fun on holidays.

It's true. When our kids were little,  I decorated our kitchen/dining area with dozens of construction paper hearts before they woke up. (It was a fun spin on the term "heart attack".) We made pink heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, even if Valentines fell on a school day and I created all manner of heart-themed dishes for dinner.

Things have changed.

Late Saturday night I realized that V-day is Monday. I forgot to send care packages to our college kids. I didn't buy a gift for my husband. I've got to show up for jury duty in a neighboring city by 8 a.m.; thank goodness there's plenty of leftover french toast for breakfast. Yesterday we were so rushed to make it to a niece's wedding festivities and to prepare for Sunday (including a sacrament meeting musical number) that I forgot to buy candy and valentines for our youngest son to distribute at school. Also, this IS the year that he didn't make a generic valentine box or bag in class. Instead, students were invited to participate in a best-decorated Valentine box contest. He had a major audition this past week and is preparing for another in a few days so today is his only chance to create a cardboard robot to receive valentines. It's covered with tinfoil and scotch tape. One arm keeps flopping down. I can only imagine the cute creations other kids are going to show off tomorrow but the boxes are supposed to be the kids' work, right? My husband and I were busy preparing dinner anyway and visiting his mother who isn't well.

So . . . I've spent a lot of time showing love in other ways. It's enough.

In the meantime, I'll stop writing and see what we can do about the Valentine robot's arm.

To Anne Katrine, Ancestor

One of my sisters is just seventeen months older than I. We shared a bedroom, imaginative games, clothes and curling irons but, like most siblings, we also endured plenty of spats.

In an effort to help us learn the importance of getting along, our mom used to tell us about her grandmother who emigrated from Denmark to Utah when she was five years old with her eleven-year-old sister for company. Recently converted to the LDS church, their family was too poor to travel together to Zion. Instead, their parents sent the children one by one or in pairs, as finances permitted. An older sister had already settled in Ephraim, Utah and two sister missionaries agreed to watch over the little girls during the long journey. But they were often left to themselves on the ship and food was sometimes scanty. When the girls finally reached Utah, life with their sister and her family was sometimes less-than-ideal. My great-grandmother grew up, eventually married and moved to Emery, Utah. I'm grateful for her family's sacrifices that provided me with so many blessings.

As a parent, I find it hard to imagine the pain of sending such young daughters on an uncertain journey. But persecution of Danish converts was often severe, sometimes to the point where the safety of girls was threatened. I don't know if this was the case in my ancestors' family, but I tried to capture what my great-great-grandmother might have felt in the following poem, "To Anne Katrine, Ancestor".  I first wrote it when our daughter was small. After a decade of receiving rejection slips and revising, I was happy when the poem finally appeared on the pages of Irreantum, a LDS literary journal. By that time, our daughter had graduated from high school. Cheers for the virtue of perserverence.

To Anne Katrine, Ancestor
Aarhus, Denmark

Perhaps you never remembered
slipping that last coin into
safe-keeping--
only an evening,
counting everything out,
when your husband whispered
"We'll send them now."

You knew to not
watch by your little girls' bed
as he smoothed their curls
away from closed eyes.
A window must be latched
against the dark rain,
another satchel packed
for their passage
to Zion.

At the harbor,
he stepped aside
to buy a gift of oranges
while you wondered if
the salty wind
would wear into hunger
that could not let
these children sleep.

Sails and a mist
drew them from view:
your last-born
almost mindful
of oceans and years,
her sister solemnly bearing
their untasted fruit.

Likening the Miracle

I read "Likening the Miracle" at the annual LDS church cultural arts presentation. This rare opportunity to mingle with other poets, composers and musicians left me feeling energized and motivated to keep writing. Best of all, I felt connected to them with a common purpose: to create something that is "lovely, praiseworthy and of good report".

This poem resulted from some personal struggles. One particularly difficult Sunday, I listened to an inspired Gospel Doctrine teacher discuss the story of the woman who exercised faith to be healed by touching Christ's garment. The teacher shared several historical details: how the woman might have been shunned because her illness made her "unclean", how she had most likely never married or even felt the comfort of human touch for twelve years. After living so long with shame, the woman could have been reluctant to ask the Savior to bless her with the laying on of hands. But she found enough faith to reach out and touch the fringe of his garment.

I'd heard the story countless times but was stunned by how it became a metaphor for what I was experiencing. After being unable to write poetry, I was happy to feel motivated again and a theme about the atonement gradually emerged.

Most people experience a kind of Gethsemane at least once in their lives. I hope those who read this poem come away with a reverence for the reality of the atonement--how our Savior's willingness to endure excruciating spiritual pain enabled Him to understand and heal our "unseen wounds".


Likening the Miracle

"For she said within herself,
if I may but touch his garment,
I shall be whole." Matthew 9:21

I never hovered
outside village crowds--
unclean in my bleeding,
banned from even a dream
of touch
or embrace.

My hand never drew healing
through rough-woven folds
that clothed the Messiah
as carpenter's son.

Yet my living is spent
in search
of prescription;
wearing the dust
of windburned journey,
I finally kneel
then reach
for a reddened robe.

And He who bore
Gethsemane's unseen wounds
will yet pronounce me
whole.