One thing a reader learns from Terryl Givens’s new biography is that no one who knew Eugene England could claim to be an objective appraiser of his life. Countless individuals revered him; he had guided…
Podcast version of this piece. Sabbath afternoon in summer sometimes feelslike those February mornings I’d wedge thedamp butt of each newspaper in friend’s saddlepack clouded gray with his indistinguishablefingerprints. Their buckling mouths a smudgedbouquet of…
Podcast version of this piece. Scene: Thicket for a Slaughter We have seenbets, contests— only the greatones sent tospar with God: father, son,sacrifice. Scene: An Examination Question:the brain, a tangledbramble—the fire and the knife,a fearsomebinding.…
In 2018, the Sunday School instructor of my Mormon congregation was assigned to teach the stories about Lot found in Genesis 19. The teacher confessed that he was very uncomfortable discussing these narratives. Instead, he…
Podcast version of this piece. I pause on the path, drop my sticks,and bend to read them like runes.Tell the stars, They said. So I do daily— I chart their breathless turning asI gather berries…
Podcast version of this piece. I don’t know, Jake,why Dad asked me to drive you there,but I did hear every word Brother Allen said,and here’s a few he skipped: Our Heavenly Fatheris pleased with your…
Listen to the podcast version here. The doorbell rang as I hung up the phone, and then I heard my father’s deep, imposing voice fill our entryway. I stood and walked slowly into the unlit…
Podcast version of this piece. You who more than oncespelled angle when meaning angel,are now one—maybe both.A sharp line on white paperdriving hardand fastin another spacewhose numbersI do not know. YetIn the arithmeticof our individual…
Podcast version of this piece. That dark matter that fashioned us, days laterMade light by command, what voice, I wonderCould shake atoms into place and stir invisibleWaves through the air, as something we cannot seeAllows…
Podcast version of this piece. No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be,Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt,…