Segullah Journal

August 2007 To my husband, two-weeks after our Parker’s death Another trip to Manti Temple Postscript to Sailing to Manti (published in Segullah Summer 2007) We crawl through excavation: Splayed walls of striated fleshrock where water has ploughed this thorny gorge, where debris rots under tumbled planes of memory, upended and shuffled. A dam burst here. [...]

When I was small the ramp felt like forever. Walking and walking, Counting the stars, gazing at the planets, And walking and walking. When I got there And the music was playing And the sisters were talking All I could see were your feet Shockingly big and white With perfect toenails and scars from holes. [...]

I’d been ten thousand miles And coming Through stony landscapes Kneeling under broken skies And the cries Down slotted canyons Of those who had To be saved No matter the cost. For the healing of the soul Is a green-eyed pool Bending to unknown depths, Glazed over by debris And the stench Of secrets caught [...]

Sonnet for Lizzie Beth, 13 years now Cream-colored paper tells me I am married on earth to a man. Tattered, rolled up, frayed at the edges. I hold a knot of concern near your birth. Inside me, your illuminated spring embraces, cradles the playfulness of swimming heels and light hands, unlike this heaviness we hold, [...]

Never mind the muck on my boots nor the streaks on my face, nor even my wind-wispy hair. My beauty is in the stream I stand in. It washes common stones to a gem polish and never asks for a white dress. The first I could not escape; my shrill voice did not find resonance [...]

“even we . . . groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption . . . the redemption of our body.” Romans 8:23 We wander on a wandering planet, with creatures muted, lost in weary wilderness. Valleys carve a cavity for sorrows, oceans, a catalogue of tears. We are foreigners, foraging remains of home and belonging, longing [...]

At daybreak You remain a mystery The pure name we never speak Sojourner without a history Seed language called forth out of the gloaming A stalk that wilted out of season Purple stemmed they cut you from my body Already you droop Petals folded back like stars, reflexed and nodding I take you in my [...]

I am destined not to run, but to sputter slowly, to amble on, wheezing, as cars zoom past me, and cyclists, their forms exposed by spandex. Other runners pass, avoiding eye contact. Children scurry on, chasing each other. A kind elderly couple saunters by, holding hands until the end. Birds fly overhead, circle in wonder, [...]

He skitters over grass at halting intervals in primordial ritual. Pausing, feathers fall in statued silence. He cocks ancient head, muting traffic’s tumult and dog’s demand. Ear attunes to restless worm oozing channels below earth’s crust— the other turns upward, spanning heaven. Eye ponders the Maker of each blade’s dewy bead and puff of pollen [...]

Morning’s easy light  Your warm and constant breath  The blue earth, spinning    It is hard to believe in death  Angela Hallstrom thinks sleeping in on a Saturday morning is one of life’s truest pleasures. Why does it have to be so rare? She’s the author of a novel, Bound on Earth, the editor of [...]

2009 Poetry Contest Honorable Mention Charles picks figs for breakfast. Hand stretches to tree, shoulders stoop, flannel sleeve pulls back, exposes a mottled arm creased by years. I take the bowl of dark rubies. He says he’s learning when to pick figs. If green and firm, skin tight, the meat is not ready. Wait. When [...]

2009 Poetry Contest First Place July 26, 2007 Provo Temple, Utah   “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:22    These animal skin coverings feel soaked from floating  in sorrow’s brine, and we groan  under their weight, groan  towing tent and tackle up the foothills  [...]

2009 Poetry Contest Honorable Mention You have come to me From the clutter of gumball machines, A bright trinket dispensed Into my waiting hand. Made in a place where no one can pronounce your names, molded, pressed out by the hundreds. Can you still be beneficent when no hand has carved you, painted your face, [...]

Unhinged he looked at her.    Clenched jaw working like a throbbing naked heart  she scrubbed the carrot till its  flesh glistened raw,  stripped of bitter gritty skin,  then slammed it down  took up the knife  and slashed the thing into a dozen startled discs.    “She’ll get her finger,” he thought  (half hoped)  amazed [...]

2009 Poetry Contest Second Place —for Billie Jeanne Underwood    Just stepped outside when no one was watching,  screen door still swinging. . .   How could you be gone, truly?—  I think of you like Prometheus—  come from a dark place & carrying fire,  coming straight for us—  nimble feet, dark hair, dark eyes, [...]

In the valley between bone and bone  where my children stretched awake   and where a silent, sudden roll, a tumbling,  would slide into comfort again,  their movements, their proximity   made me safe.    So, when, in a recent nightmare, I glanced over  and my toddler was sinking through murky water  a boat’s length [...]

In fourth grade, at my mother’s suggestion, I read  How to Win Friends and Influence People,  wandered the playground, determinedly  “inquiring about the interests of others,”  and “using their names frequently  in conversation.” Useless. Nerdish. What I lacked  was a T-shirt with a puppy iron-on decal.    Amberly Dennery’s hair  feathered just right, her fat-  [...]

2009 Poetry Contest Honorable Mention October, 2007 Sharm el-Sheihk, Egypt  “But the Children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.” Exodus 14:29    I’m watching bodies  from where I sit at the end of [...]

-for Ellen and Jim You know that old T-shirt of yours, puckered at the neck, holes worn of bleach and laundering, letters faded, shape stretched? That shirt that gets in the way when I fold clothes into stacks, That shirt I object to should you wash our car in it– (better you wash a car [...]

2009 Poetry Contest Third Place Thanksgiving, 2009 Munich, Germany   “For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him: Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord.” 1 Samuel 1:27-28    She wept [...]

First Place, Poetry Contest For K Opinions vary as we wait to hear if her health is billed clean as spic-n-span, and in my bumbling fearful heartbreak I find myself as useless in consolation as I imagine; no more, no less … I loathe this mortal question. Standing bald and ashen, still she teaches not [...]

The fathers think of soccer as the usual battlefield. They expect to see warriors where little girls were. From beside the sweet crushed grass by the equator of the field where they watch their own daughters hesitate, lend a hand to another who is down, and hear, Oh, sorry! No, YOU go ahead! rise like [...]

Uriah’s wife Tresses unbound Stepped unwise wet Too open to sky. Did she know? Was she flattered by the attention? Favored or frightened? The loneliness of a soldier’s too frequent Absence abated. Lulled by earth-power Did she walk reluctant or Grasp with arms open To have her name forever Braided with tragedy? Elaine Rumsey Wagner [...]

For my father, gone seven years now My father, inches away on my couch, sinks his body into cushions where he stays to slow me down with conversations. Rippling syllables, staccato-like words, round his soft ears as he pretends to bend around my life and understand. He sees me, his only daughter with two daughters [...]

someday i will stand barefoot beneath a blue sky and i will feel you separated from me by only a thin layer of skin and membrane and you will be me but not at all me and someday you will run to me with muddy hands and pull on my shirt and lay your head [...]

Your spirit escaped in two deep sighs like air hissed from a balloon; and, no longer confined, it filters through the house dusting everything with your stilled presence. Voices compel me beyond our converged time, past the lingering smell of your cologne, past your words, ah, dearest, your tender words as they turn to whispers. [...]

Wooden slats subdivide the moon, slice light into almost even strips. Thick eyelashes sweep the stillness of lines cast across your sleeping face. Light stripes you, reveals you in fractions— closed eyes, mouth, scar from your first shave. Lines of light tremble in the thunder of a passing train. You sleep on, undisturbed. After one [...]

For Gram It’s been a summertime of solace like I’ve had before, soaking up the warmth of your bright soul and listening to your yarns and ponderings. I’ve filled myself to overflowing with your fresh perspective, born of ice cream through the alleyway and days with only soap of raging lye and learning not to [...]

Silver lines snake up my belly and my daughter claims them with childlike pride and I’ve spent a few rounds flat on the floor, unresponsive as nobody’s business, so why should I feel on the less-than side of the catwalk? Skin-deep seems a little underrated as I try and button up and cannot seem to [...]

2008 poetry contestsecond place It’s the kiss of nervous wing against dirt, dragging against gravel; it’s a cry, a feigned weakness leading the predator away; it’s a gift for facing danger: her liver enlarged, cancer rampant, pain not sometimes but always, & always tired; her gaunt eyes— the way she looked at us all that [...]