BROWN PSALM

BROWN PSALM

How couldst Thou be so cruel to me?
“I am the Gardener here”
Why didst Thou prune my eminence?
“To make you sweeter, Dear”

What can I give when I’m so small?
“Your yield will augment mine”
How can I fill my destiny?
“Your harvest will be fine”

(26 October 2010, Provo, Utah)

THE POET PSALM

THE POET PSALM (for EED and RWE) 

Circumference her master trope – 

Her minor turn is prose 

Of dialectic opposites – 

The arguments men pose. 

She runs a Circuit round the Word – 

Her purpose is to ring 

The bells of periphrastic hymn – 

Her “business is to sing” 

Domestic is her universe 

Beneath – beside – above – 

 Beyond antithesis she brings 

Economy of love. 

 (11 August 2010, Provo, Utah)

MT. PLEASANT PSALM

MT. PLEASANT PSALM

(To my mother Florence and for Viola Stock Jarvis)

The heart is the last thing to go –
The body lingers here –
The pulse runs fast – subsides too slow –
Relinquishing what’s dear.

The feet are the first part to change
To alabaster hues –
How beautiful though pale and strange
The life without the shoes.

A place of white and rays of light –
Her new address is Star –
The Milky Way moves forward to
Accompany her Car.

Her chariot of fire leaves
A comet in the wake –
And each good work she did for us,
A comma for her sake.

(revised 16 February 2011, Provo, Utah)

EXORDIUM PSALM

EXORDIUM PSALM

To resurrect is ordinance –
An order to Revive –
The one commandment all obey
Is coming back alive.

We have to leave the dust behind –
Forsake the hard-earned earth –
Walk out of stiff mortality
Into a vital Birth.

Our viability is sure –
Ordained by Highest Saint –
Who labored through our detritus –
But He made no complaint.

(7 February 2011, Provo, Utah)

TRUST PSALM

TRUST PSALM (Mormon 9)

Can I be spotless, pure, fair, white –
Cleansed by the guiltless Lamb?
Can I be humble – diligent –
Be like the meek I-AM?

Can I believe in miracles –
In promises He’ll grant?
Can I work out salvation
By faith if I repent?

(5 February 2011, Provo, Utah)

LEXIS PSALM

LEXIS PSALM

I know how lace and silk can be
In words that we choose well –
I see how sensitivity
Can tailor what we tell.

I notice how lines wait on us
And turn into a verse –
I feel a text’s proclivity
To baptize and immerse.

(5 February 2011, Provo, Utah)

NIKE PSALM

NIKE PSALM

He walks above his weakness –
He leaps above the lies –
He skips around the scandals –
Avoids a compromise –

He focuses on winning –
He finds the finish line –
He runs like revelation –
His nidus, the Divine.

He shows us how to vanquish –
He jumps the pain with smiles –
He practices til perfect –
He vindicates the trials.

He overcomes by bounding –
He springs to victory –
He celebrates his triumph –
His valedictory.

(5 February 2011, Provo, Utah)

GROVE PSALM

GROVE PSALM (for Elder Kikuchi)

To keep a journal is to pray
In words that angels seal –
To make a record for each day
Establishes what’s real.

To thank the Father for His love
Enhances joy we feel –
To ask a question is to seek
The answer He’ll reveal.

(27 January 2011, Provo, Utah)

SEALING PSALM

SEALING PSALM (For AHK)

The Other Side has Schools of Light –
Our Mentors labor there
With rolled-up sleeves in shirts of white –
Their manuscript is rare.

It’s filled with our Biographies –
Atlantic Ocean tales –
Adventures on Pacific seas –
In waves, in calms, in gales.

They gather our decisions in –
They sort them by Degree –
They work with tooled precision in
A golden filigree.

(3 November 2010, Provo, Utah)

MOISTURE PSALM

MOISTURE PSALM

Rain, speckling down in strings,
Unspotted overwhelms –
A liquid stream of word refrains –
Extraordinary realms.

A fragment of refreshing brooks –
Precipitations’s sea –
As drop by bead the Providence
Cleans window panes for me.

(2 October 2010, Provo, Utah)

COMPOSITION PSALM

COMPOSITION PSALM

Ingredients for mastery:
Energy – Control – Grace –
As if the Mind were sheet of ice –
As if the Brain had skates.

The Energy means Detail – Power –
The strokes of brilliancy –
Control means order – discipline –
Practice – proficiency.

The Grace means smoothness – balancing –
Originality –
The quality of edges cut
In figured vibrancy.

(2 October 2010, Provo, Utah)

UPGRADE PSALM

UPGRADE PSALM (to Elder Christofferson)

Honor has a quiet footstep –
Valor has a modest voice –
Honesty has earnest motives:
Decency in every choice.

Plain and precious consecration
Has a simple recipe:
“Purity – exertion – service –
Self-respect – integrity.”

(2 October 2010, Provo, Utah)

HOMELY PSALM

HOMELY PSALM

A plain face has its own estate –
So easy to adorn –
Enhancement almost effortless –
A smile can cancel scorn.

A low grace has its own reward –
No vanity to flaunt –
Reminded by forgetfulness
The emptiness of vaunt.

Familiar countenance is home –
To welcome frailty
As echo of a former age
Beyond debility.

The dead are not presumable –
They leave a vivid trace
Of helix-sculpted elegance –
Dimensions out of place.

(16 September 2010, Provo, Utah)

RINK SONG

RINK SONG

I know how to weave –
To move in and out –
Maintaining my speed –
Selecting a route –
Respecting Their space –
I know how to pass
In cross-over strokes –
Glide forward and back –
I practice new skills –
I learn how to spin –
Whirl left and twirl right –
Curve out and turn in.

(16 September 2010, Provo, Utah)

ABROAD PSALM

ABROAD PSALM

Our lives are intertwined
No matter where we go –
The interstice of circumstance
Connects the roots below.

Our times are co-aligned
In spite of distances –
Coordinates of memory
Above resistances.

(26 August 2010, Provo, Utah)

SPACE PSALM

SPACE PSALM (for Neal deGrasse Tyson)

The distant Universe arrives –
Our telescope expands –
The Timing is irrelevant
When Vision greets the Band.

The Light we see – though millions old –
Is good enough for dreams –
The journey through the patient Dark
Is not far as it seems.

(27 August 2010, Provo, Utah)

SMILE PSALM

SMILE PSALM

She let her voice be beautiful –
She let her song emerge –
She let her tenderness evolve
Into a gentle curve –

Allowed the years to soften tone –
Permitted age to bend
Her plainness into cadences
With measures that ascend.

(14 August 2010, Provo, Utah)

TITLE PSALM

TITLE PSALM

Prophet of Prophets – Lord of Birds –
Leader of Angels – King of Words –
Shepherd of Sparrows – Friend of Friends –
Healer of Lepers – Man who Mends.

(31 May 2010, Provo, Utah)

CONFIDENT PSALM

CONFIDENT PSALM

The compliment was never meant
To flatter nor to tempt –
Although the gesture gathered her
There was no vain intent.

The unanticipated words –
Spontaneous attempt
To comfort someone desolate
With message heaven-sent.

(7 June 2010, Provo, Utah)

QUILT PSALM

QUILT PSALM

Thou Art the Part that means the Whole –
Thou Art are the veiled Gestalt –
Thou Art are the Body for the Soul –
The Might that may Exalt.

Out of Small things proceeding Great –
Out of the Dust a Breath –
Out of the Earth a grander Fate –
The Life that hampers Death.

Thou Art the Symbol and the Sign –
Thou Art the Sacrament –
Thou Art the delicate Design
That Love can Represent.

Into Thy Covenant we Come –
Into the Promised Land –
Into the Fulness of all Time –
The Power of Thy Hand.

(23 March 2010, Provo, common meter, 8-6-8-6)