Dragging Fanny
March 31, 2018Her last hymn in the book—and they’re dragging it.
Behold, her royal army’s old. Band of stragglers,
banners furled, tired voices buckling the pews.
DiaBLOGue
The Last Code Talker
March 31, 2018DZEH-NESH-CHEE-AH-NAH-TSIN-TLITI-TSAH-AS-ZIH. Elk-Nut-Eye-Match-Yucca. His grandfather used to say the bilagaanas always come in twos. The first time he was barely five years old, playing on a sand dune near their hogan west of Valley Store. He…
Afterward
March 31, 2018Once on the porch I asked
great-grandfather Porter a question
loudly and he said wait
though he was just sitting still
his face raised to low sun
eyes half-open
Above the Estuary (Before the trail closure through Cascade Preserve)
March 31, 2018The river’s long curve
enters the bay in streak between meadow
and forest—algae green of freshwater,
kelp green of salt.
Sparrow Hunter
March 31, 2018At fourteen, when I could legally hunt game birds, I became a serious hunter. I hunted ducks and pheasants, but also rabbits, crows, rock chucks, hawks, owls, eagles, coyotes, rodents, and rattlesnakes. I never killed…
Metaphysics over lunch
March 31, 2018English professor and rebel:
Off campus, our sentences race
the tabletop, garbed in wit and color.
By the time food comes, our ideas dance
On Meditation
March 31, 2018I used to run. Fast and furiously, always anxious, always thinking I should be quicker, go farther. I had friends who had run marathons and competed in 10Ks. I envied them and wanted to be like them: longer legs, faster times, thinner limbs. I counted calories and measured miles. I ran, but never liked it, didn’t like the way I beat myself up while I was running—”faster! faster!”—nor the fact that I dreaded the next run before the current one was even done.
Caught Gull, Plowing
March 31, 2018At five, standing at the edge of the field,
Dad up there on the great green Deere,
I must have been scared he’d leave.
He made me an offer: Catch me a seagull
Companionship
March 31, 2018We’d had problems, especially lately:
Just last week I snapped at him
and found myself staring into the outraged eyes
of a former national rugby star, his one fist
The Mark of the Curse: Lingering Racism in Mormon Doctrine
March 31, 2018Dialogue 32.1 (Spring 1999): 119–135
Norman discusses instances where the racist teachings that justified the priesthood restrictions before 1978 continue to be taught.