A Mormon literary backcountry where words and place come together.

 

 

 

 

Archive for October, 2010

Embrace the pure life, part three

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

Part one here.  Part two here.
Please, please, don’t be a litterbug.
Please, please, don’t be a litterbug.
Please, please, don’t be a litterbug
‘Cause every litter bit hurts.
In the 60s, a chorus of children’s voices sang this song during television and radio public service messages that were part of a national campaign against littering.   Even after decades of [...]

California Summer by Michael Lee Johnson

Monday, October 25th, 2010

Coastal warm breeze
off  Santa Monica, California
the sun turns salt
shaker upside down
and it rains white smog, humid mist.
No thunder, no lightening,
nothing else to do
except sashay
forward into liquid
and swim
into eternal days
like this.
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For more poetry by Michael Lee Johnson and a bio, click here.

Embrace the pure life, part two

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Part one here.
Recently, my husband and I were in the City Market in Moab buying supplies for my special needs daughter’s formula.  For fun, we sifted through the motorcycle skullcap rack, looking for a skullcap—with skulls—that my husband might like to wear in addition to the one I bought him following his recent brain surgery.  [...]

Embrace the pure life, part one

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

One morning last summer I came up out of Crossfire carrying two objects I wasn’t carrying when I entered the canyon.  The first was a fully intact turkey tail feather that I plucked from the trail.  As I admired it, I noticed an oily sheen on the dark-brown barbs near the feather’s tip.  I stopped [...]

Indolent Sun by Michael Lee Johnson

Monday, October 18th, 2010

In early March
an indolent sun
persists in tossing
volunteer rays of
soft flickering sun silk
through dark desolate
willow tree branches-
melting remnants
of snow diamond crystals
from weathered wooden planks
on my balcony.
I’m starting to think life
is an adjective exaggerated
by the sway of seasons.
It’s normal feeding time.
Below two floors
wild Canadian geese
wait impatiently
for the tossing of morning feed;
the silent sound they hear–
no dropping of [...]

Have You Seen the Glory of God by Travis Burnham

Monday, October 4th, 2010

“Have you seen the glory of God?”
I asked my son one night
As we gazed at starlight
He didn’t even nod.
No cityscape to block the rays
From remote celestial beings.
Not brilliant Luna in full array
Can keep us from seeing,
Andromeda, with glorious crown,
Her aged light is found;
Whom Perseus saved anciently
Has now found her own galaxy.
Sirius, Thuban, Polaris,
The stars in [...]