Seventh Wife

Wagon canvas

whipped and flapped

as unrelenting wind

and rain assaulted

the desolate camp

at Winter Quarters.

Inside, bereft of mother comfort

(her own mother only

five days in the grave)

23-year-old Sarah Houston Pratt—

after surviving the winter

on cracked corn—

gave birth to four-pound

infant daughter Julia,

tenth child of apostle Parley P. Pratt,

a missionary in far-off England.

“O God, where art thou?”[1]

Sarah may have wondered.

But two months later,

her shoulders squared,

she, Parley,

and his seven other

wives were on their way

to the Great Salt Lake,

faith still intact

and Sarah driving a wagon

with her babe behind her

in a padded box.

While Parley answered

call after call to

spread the Word

to all the world,

steadfast Sarah

eschewed communal living

for a secluded farm

near Salt Lake

where she spun

and toiled and

waited,

ever waited.

Note: Sarah Houston Pratt is my great great grandmother

---

[1] Doctrine and Covenants 121:1

To My Friend Leslee

Sometimes I yearn for one more day at the lake,
the wind whipping my hair,
throttle wide open,
half standing, my leg braced on the seat,
190 horsepower leaping forward, planing out.

Do you remember Andrew throwing
our puppy into the lake (he was teaching her to swim)?
Or Andrew playing with baby snakes in the shallows—
they were probably rattlers?
Or Dee and Joe doing “the Locomotion”
barefoot on the deck?
Or later, when Dee hadn’t gone for years,
and he defiantly sat on the beach and read?

Or what about the icy tingle in our armpits
when we jumped into Lucky Peak in June?
Or scrubbing duck doo doo off docks at Lake Lowell?
Or a passel of children—yours and mine—
who could play all day in the sand?
Or the upswell of joy as we skimmed across the waves
with reckless abandon?

Oh, for one more day filled with the
coconutty scent of sunscreen,
of chattering baby voices
and suntanned teenage bodies,
for the summer sun burning our backs until
it was a pleasure to jump into the frigid water,
for shared adventure, the elixir of friendship,
and water smooth as a glass slipper.

Remembering Maud Lovisa Fuhriman

What would great grandma

think if she could see me

sitting on my throne in

my climate-controlled house–

she who took the kids

out to the “shade” of the haystack

on hot summer afternoons?

 

I imagine her with her hair

pulled back in a tight bun,

sweat dripping down

the neck of her long-sleeved dress.

Mopping her head, she checks the bread

in the oven of the old wood stove.

Then she washes beets from the garden

and peels potatoes for dinner.

Heat and dust and flies are ever-present

on this homestead in the Idaho desert,

where she carries water in a bucket

to her seedling trees and pays her

son a penny for every hundred flies he kills.

 

Could she even imagine

eating fresh grapes and

watermelon and raspberries

grown by other people?

Would she be enthralled or appalled

by a life where you never

have to milk the cow

or churn the butter

or gather the eggs–

where there is no fire to start,

no wood to chop,

no chickens to feed?

Embroidery of Hope

What was it I hoped for–
a sixteen year old
who was usually more interested
in volleyball than sewing–

when I French-knotted
salmon flowers and
stitched royal blue and lime
into a flowing peacock’s tail?

Was I thinking of a handsome husband
and happily ever after,
of a houseful of giggling girls
and Gerber baby boys?

I’m sure I didn’t imagine
sleepless nights with a critically ill baby
or what we would do
when my husband lost his job.

I also never envisioned
the thrill of twin grandchildren
jumping up and down by the window,
shouting, “Grandma’s here!”

I had a vague idea of my
hoped-for love and life,
but not an inkling of the
down-and-dirty daily press.

Now, the regal peacock reminds me
that my forever is still in the making,
and thanks to sacred covenants,
I should continue embroidering hope.

Time Traveler

I am an “emissary from a vanished world,” (1)
a world of photos with scalloped edges,
a realm where my mother wore house dresses
and baked cookies for us when we got off the school bus,
a place of black-and-white television
and neighbors listening in on party lines,
a world where ten year olds could take off on bikes
for whole afternoons of riding around town
or gallop off on ponies for a picnic.

 

It was a time when enemies lived in faraway places,
like Russia and China,
but no one worried about getting shot by other kids at school
or by neighbors at the movie theater.
It was a world of American Bandstand and I Love Lucy,
a world that went crazy for a British boy band, The Beatles.
It was a place of piano lessons and band practice and junior prom,
a world where we could temporarily lose our parents
because there was no cell phone tracking.

 

 

[1] From Sparrow. “The Art of Aging.” The Sun. April 2017.

 

 

De-clawed

From her cover

behind the euonymus,

deadly talons

lashed out.

Dogs cowered

and even people

paid homage.

Behind a screen

of grape vines,

she crept, inching,

black ninja silent,

tail beating a slow,

metronomic trance,

eyes, burning coals,

then, bam!

a small bird lay dead.

 

Now,

the deadly

killer skulks

inside the garage;

snowy tufts of hair

fall out in clumps;

mice no longer

skirt the yard;

the graveyard

of feathers

is gone.

Today,

she mews

in her refuge,

a shadow

of her former

assassin-self.

 

 

My mother-in-law,

no less vital

than the cat,

used to wield

a wooden spoon

like a wand,

conjuring up gravy

and mashed potatoes

that caused people

to moan and swoon,

bringing down the

brawny defenses

of hulking

farm workers

with rhubarb pies

and whipping cream.

 

 

Now, ancient,

like the cat,

her world is

a room

peopled with

recurring memories,

memories

of days gone by

where truth

and fiction

intermingle,

of a time

when her spatula

was a spear,

her frying pan

fortress.

The Season for Battle

Non Sequitur

Fall is the season of leaves turning red and gold, the season of school buses and frosty mornings, and the season for battle. In ancient times, when things got tense at home, men could prove themselves by putting on 80 pounds of armor and joining the Crusades. In early America, macho dudes could head West and battle Indians and look for gold. Today, restless guys strap on goggles and join the leaf blower battles, the manly sport of blowing air.

Neighbor A swaggers out of his garage sporting a Husqvarna 580 BTS backpack blower. He grins maniacally as it roars to life, drowning out howling dogs and fire sirens. Leaves and dirt swirl up from his grass and tumble into the street.

Later, when Neighbor A has settled in front of the TV with a root beer, chips, and guacamole, he is jolted out of his repose by the thunder of Neighbor B’s walk-behind Billy Goat Force 169cc blower. By the time he has his work boots back on, Neighbor A’s blower has not only blasted every leaf in the neighborhood back into his yard but has created a no-green zone between their two properties.

Rather than engage in open warfare, A decides to wait until B is out of town for the weekend to return the favor. And so it goes.

Fall used to be a time of walking through crunchy piles of leaves and listening to honking Canadian geese as they flew overhead on their way to warmer climes. Now, the sound of autumn is the roar of a machine louder than a chainsaw and more annoying than a roomful of old men snoring.

And for what? A lawn mower makes the grass shorter and a rototiller digs things up, but a leaf blower, like a political candidate, simply blows. The blasted thing sounds like it is doing some kind of useful work, but it merely moves things around.

Womb Cocoon

Gravity is suspended as

she lies back in the water–

weightless, buoyant,

glorying in her native element.

 

Kicking, she is propelled

with surprising speed

and joyously dives deep

with a porpoise-like flip,

 

choreographing her somersaults

to the swooshing of blood

and the hypnotic lullaby

of burbling and gurgling.

 

The water tickles

and enlivens her skin

as she climbs and gropes

inside her watery cocoon.

 

When she tires,

undulating ripples

soothe and settle her,

and she nestles next to

 

a thrum thrum thrumming,

snug in the water’s embrace,

gently swaying, swishing,

the rock-a-bye of angels.

Unspooling

Photo courtesy of Laurel Leaf Farm http://www.laurelleaffarm.com/

Great grandma Angie’s box
overflowed with wooden spools
left over from dresses and drapes,
quilts and petticoats,

wooden spools worn smooth
by girls and boys
making towers and towns,
ammunition, and counters for games,

remainders from hours at the treadle,
the thread moving up and down,
unwhirling from the bobbin
during countless hours

under Grandma’s able hands,
unwinding yards of pink and baby blue,
pristine white and practical black,
threads now absent from the spotless spools.

The Path I Walked

The path I walked was

bequeathed me by my grandmothers:

 

we cut potatoes into pieces

and buried them in furrows,

dropped peach halves into Ball jars

to glow golden in the winter gloom,

slathered butter on thick slices

of freshly baked bread.

 

Sometimes, I wish I could again

see the fox running through the field,

hear red-winged blackbirds

calling from the cattails,

and watch my little boys

playing football in the yard.

 

I would scoop up a handful of dirt

and cradle it to my chest.

I would run to the dirt trails

to watch bicyclists go airborne.

I would wait for my husband

to walk through the door,

the sun a burning anvil in the west.