On a warm Virginia day I walked to the Eastern Seaboard Coastline double tracks near our house and came to a small pond lying between the track grade and the woods. A stand of wild irises grew in the water, along with rushes, green bubble-beaded algae, and sedges. It was a small habitat not entirely [...]
This is the first installment of a five-part post.
Always it’s the same: the woods are leaf-fatted, midsummer. Low-growing Mayapple and ginseng creep among roots of massive white oaks whose limbs form their own green-clouded groves. Ferns half my height unroll from fiddleheads. Fiddleheads, with their scrolled fronds, put me in mind of unborn things—pale, web-footed, [...]
(for Saul)
My son, seven, says, in passing,
“To travel at the speed of light
You must become light.”
From the apparent blue, this bolt
Blasts me from terrain
Of rolling, languid thought,
I am forced to leap by precipice
And, after thrills of floundering,
Beat together wings of suspense
And impetus, igniting flight.
He is only seven, and it is my duty.
Breathless, I ask:
“Where did [...]
Manchester County, New York, 1823
Late September
washes a season’s green
beyond field and village
and age seventeen;
only leaves
rinsed in afterglow
stir at Joseph’s homespun
passing.
He once knelt
in April grove,
drenched with that glory
of Father and Son.
Then summer wove roots
through his harrowed soul
as those parched by mockery
claimed the heavens
closed.
Autumn wind
shimmers into the trees,
quickening vision
of his pending task:
these hands will lift voices
silenced by [...]
Swallows fly low and fast
Singing of nests in the arena’s rafters.
Heat radiates through wood and sand
Melodius with the voices of young girls,
Odorous with warm sweat of horses,
Pungent with fresh manure,
Sweet from hay growing in the field.
The mare and the girl work hard
Learning to dance together,
To understand a tug of the rein,
The lean of a body, [...]
My happy thanks to everyone who participated in WIZ’s People Month. My list of folks for whom I’ve felt deeply grateful includes:
Th.
Nephi Anderson (via Th.’s gravelly voice)
Mark Bennion
Tyler Chadwick
greenfrog
green mormon architect
Elizabeth R.
And, of course, many thanks to WIZ’s loyal readers and commenters.
I appreciate each writer’s help keeping People Month on WIZ interesting and fun. We’ll do it again next [...]
Elizabeth is a 12-year-old girl who loves to write. Her favorite genre is fantasy. She loves riding around on her scooter, and this is one of the ways she gets her inspiration.
I sit at my computer desk with a blank document in front of me. I gaze out the window at the never-ending rain. I [...]
by P. G. Karamesines
“Why do dragons keep maidens,” she asked,
“Not killing or eating them? Why hoard
Them in caves and sleep while foolish maidens
Weep, wringing jewelry and dabbing pale
Gowns at their eyes? It can bring no real pleasure.
Fell Dragon stokes inwardly its wizard fire
While Fair Maiden strums her lyre, lamenting
Yon Burnt Hamlet from whence she came.”
She [...]
A little over four and a half years ago my family moved from Payson City in Utah County to a new home at the desert’s edge in San Juan County, Utah. Living on the Colorado Plateau has been something of a dream come true. Besides reintroducing me to a more natural (for me) environment, living [...]
Guest post by Saul
Mom came home at just after 11 AM on Saturday and told me that she wanted me to finish what I was doing and go down into Crossfire Canyon. She explained that the creek had stopped flowing, leaving some fish stranded in a puddle, at the mercy of garter snakes.
I was working [...]