R. A. Christmas

Bring ’Em Young

According to one historian, Brigham Young
had “a talent for mimicry”—a talent
the Lord used to convince the Saints that
Brigham was Joseph Smith’s successor,
but that Brigham later used to poke fun
at his fellow apostle John Taylor’s
elegant voice, dress, and mannerisms.
(Taylor loyally disliked him for that.)

Bibliography

The Beginning—improbable.
The End—incomprehensible.
Genesis and Revelation,
like wacky bookends.

His Twelve Points of the Scout Law (Grandpa Fesses Up)

Trustworthy
Loyal
Helpful
Friendly
Courteous
Kind
Obedient
Cheerful
Thrifty
Brave
Clean
Reverent

Walking Back to the ‘70s

Remember, it’s a Covenant Path. 
On our way we must keep hearts 
and minds—as Brigham said— 
“riveted on the cross of Christ.” 

Le Train à Grande Vitesse

. . . we are passengers on the train of the Church . . . the luxury of getting on and off the train as we please is fading. The speed of the train is…

Not the Truman Show

Imagine a world with labels on the leaves, 
fossilized scripture in compacted dust, 
“God Made” on hooves—where everyone believes 
not out of hope or faith, but because they must. 

The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt: Some Literary, Historical, and Critical Reflections

I suppose by this time the reader has either forgotten the circumstances in which he took leave of myself, or else is somewhat weary with the winding of the narrative and impatient for it to…

At Temple Square, Salt Lake City

This was the dream, beginning with a questFor isolated work, that brought them westTo Salt Lake Valley, looking for new startsAnd land in Zion, pushing stock and cartsOut of the world into Millennium In the Rocky…

The Dichotomy of Art and Religion

It is easy to sympathize with Dr. Marden Clark’s essay, “Art, Religion, and the Market Place” — too easy. We are all, I suppose, concerned about the relationship of religion and art, and on the…

A Translation of Paul Valery’s “Ebauche D’un Serpent”: Sketch of a Serpent

In the tree, the soft breeze cradles 
The viper that I wear. 
A smile, where the fang strikes 
Appetites into flame, 
Drifts, like a prowler, through the Garden, 
And my emerald mask unwinds 
A split tongue into the blue. . . 
A beast, a cunning beast, 
And my venom is vile—but it leaves 
Wise hemlock far behind! 

At Mountain Meadows: For Juanita Brooks

The mass grave here is set with stones 
Piled low inside a low rock wall, 
And marked for travelers by a sign 
That tells us briefly of the murder 
Of six score emigrants, whose bones 
Lay here and there once—on the plain, 
In the gulley—left to the weather 
Of almost a century where they fell— 

Eve

Leaves and fruit were falling 
And I only wanted to know 
Why this, of all the trees, 
Kept alternating greens 
And browns and why it dropped 
Those ugly pods and stems— 
I only wanted to know 
Of the roots, the crazy clutch 
That broke the ground, the branches 

Adam

Let’s see. This morning—since you’ve been gone—
I’ve taken a walk on the beach, naming 
And naming and naming, until I can name no more. 
Comber, anemone, crab. Will these do? 

I talk to myself now—so I’ve found—
As never before, when he’d leave me, often 
Now, and now you. I guess I’ll get used 
To the feeling. But it’s funny—the way I get thinking

Decapitating the Mormons: Richard Scowcroft’s New Novel | Richard Scowcroft, The Ordeal of Dudley Dean

Dudley Dean is a forty-year-old befuddled jack-Mormon professor of English. Wife Hannah has left him and married one of his teaching colleagues—a maudlin, oversexed boor named Ashton—and his devout Mormon mother has just died. Dudley…

John D. Lee

at his execution, 
Mountain Meadows, Utah, March 23, 1877 

I want to say I used what strength I had 
to save those people. It went on. I could not

Ghost Truck

for RHC 

Now I lay me down by the freeway, 
In a duplex in Cedar City, Utah;

Looking West from Cedar City, Utah

When Jed Smith passed us by, in 1826, 
The junipers made a rush down from the hills. 
They were cut back 
Before they got to the freeway. 

Close to the Bone | Joyce Eliason, Fresh Meat/Warm Weather

It’s nice to know there was something to talk about in Manti last winter. I’m refer ring to Joyce Eliason’s Fresh Meat/Warm Weather, a confessional autobiography disguised as a first novel, which has a lot…

Another Angel

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.  Revelation,…

Three Generations of Mormon Poetry | A zipper of haze; Tinder; Christmas Voices

Dennis Clark loves poetry and poets, and he also loves to write poetry. I don’t think this can be said of everybody in the poetry business. These three chapbooks are evidence of Dennis’s development as…

Illness in the Family

One of the kids was sick, so his ex came over. 
“How are you doing?” she said. 
(That’s what she always said.) 

Heartbreak Hill

I go to Brenda’s wedding wearing 
her ex-husband’s cast-off temple garments. 

Pancha Loca

Pancha Robinson was doing dishes at her mother’s sink and watching her husband Rick, who was out in the backyard with the children. Gloria, Pancha’s sister, was sitting at the kitchen table fiddling with a…

Weight

He was folding garments in the back bedroom
when he heard one of his kids telling 
his wife that his ex had “lost a lot of weight”— 

How Things Look from the Other Side of the Lake

Put water between the highway and yourself; 
put a fence too, and some cows to graze. 

For as long as you sit on this rock, 
you are not driving north or south,

Cereal Polygamy

One of his had just spilled 
some Cheerios, and one of hers 

was griping over the Grapenuts. 
He was about to holler

His Faith-Promoting Story

Thirty-six years after his baptism, 
nobody was converted. 

His grown kids were apostates, and his exes 
were either nudists or inactives

Stake Mission

Their place was a junkyard with Joshuas,
and they’d play Mom and Pop 

to any delinquent on the desert. 
We’d be forever having

At Fifty-Five

Was he improving, 
or just too tired to sin? 

Regardless, it was pretty clear 
that where his broken heart and contrite

Hop Hornbeam

In the Sacred Grove 
near Palmyra, New York, 
there’s hardly a tree 
old enough to have been 

Forever Family

Five of his and four of hers were 
step-this-and-that to each other. 

The Church said, “Families Are 
‘Forever'”—in their case it was more

Critical Condition

for Gene England at Utah Valley Hospital, 2001 

When I heard about Gene’s surgery, I 
thought, “Even with half a brain he’d still
be ten times smarter than me!”

Nobody’s Grandpa

He paid the three-twenty 
three and slipped the familiar 
red and white box into 
his jacket pocket. 

Liahona

After he was let go, Dad’s job 
was changing the rolls on those 
little spindles in the bathrooms. 

Spring Variations on a Theme by Lorenzo Snow

As man, is God—once. 
Was—as God is man— 

Multi-level Marketing

You may not appreciate this but 
I once ran into Hugh Nibley— 
at Smith’s market in Provo— 
you know, the guy who wrote all 

A Short Poem about Nearly Everything

On his morning walk on Deer Flat Road in Kuna, Idaho,
a man came upon a chalk drawing of our 
solar system—more or less to scale. 

The Hosanna Shout

When the Mormons asked sculptor Cyrus Dallin
for a statue of their Angel Moroni to top the 
Salt Lake Temple, initially he refused by saying 
he didn’t believe in angels. 

Bibliography Bring ‘Em Young