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Articles/Essays – Volume 52, No. 2
The Moldau in a Utah Living Room
[Editor’s Note: This is a stylized poem. Please see PDF below to experience it as the poet intended.]
I most recall the river music. Smetana’s Moldau
meandered often into the air at our house,
European classical sounding in the high Utah parroquia.
da da
da di da da
da da di
da da di
da da di
da da
da da di
On hearing,
I still see glacial snow dissolve to droplets and fall, one at a time, as happens high on Timpanogos, near Emerald Lake.
I still see rivulets trickle over limestone, weep down the face, as happens in the bouldered terrain above Stewart’s Falls.
I still see a mountain stream’s rambunctious bounce, scattering water gems in the canyon air,
as happens on the North Fork, as the stream bends,
eats the road above Wildwood.
138 Dialogue, Summer 2019
I feel the splash as water trips over itself, bumbling
into the Provo River, swift enough to let us tube,
rough enough to scare us,
as happened among us on the living room floor,
hands to feet, rolling and laughing,
no fear of falling from our father’s grasp.
I see the cascading water mass, giving weigh to gravity, irreverently slide its way down steep, limed canyon sides at Upper Falls, and again near Bridal Veil, adding
mass to the stream.
I see it all pause, take a breath, straighten itself into
the protocol of a proper river, first near Edgemont,
last at Lakeview after the diversions tame it.
I see it calmly wandering in its bed, an older river now, wider now and fatter, lilting into Provo Harbor
and the fresh lake.
At the end I still see the joined force of all this,
a Sagan “billion” droplets absorbed with others into
the widest and roundest of Utah water majesties—
the salt sea,
as happens as the water restricts itself
in the Jordan Narrows, lifts its freshness
northward into the brine-laden Great Salt Lake.
I was baptized by the symphony of The Moldau,
it was my first confirmation that on hearing I could also see. do re me fa so la ti.