Old Old Men

Gnarled old fingers around a cane;                                          
Rusty hinges that groan and creak;                                            
Peering eyes, timid steps--these make
An old old portrait of tender mien.

Smile and listen to old old men:
Yearning for hero-height, they sit
Cackling their tall tales--Untruthful, yet
With old old men, such a little sin!

The Vineyard Waits

(To Frances, my missionary daughter)

My dear, you take with you the golden seed
Of truth. Your vineyard is the waiting world.
Plant well that it may grow and fill the need
For harvest and drouth-barren fields be pearled
With dew from Heaven. May your soul be filled
With love for all God's children, and your voice
Be lifted that the tempests may be stilled
And seeking hearts, hearing His call, rejoice.
What joy to see your plantings bright with flower!
May little children love you ... and the old ...
Garner the beauty from each well-spent hour
Leading the meek to peace within His fold.
Chaste-sweet and humble, your faith shining-clear--
God's arm is long to reach to you, my dear.

Ritual at Dusk

After his baby prayers Gran always held him
(This ritual made the bedtime hour glad.)
And rocked him in her dear old wooden rocker
Until he grew to be a husky lad

And gout made her old legs begin complaining.
Did they forego this cherished rite? Not they!
For sitting side by side in that loved rocker
In Granny's room they welcomed close of day.

But now the creaking rocker is too narrow,
(How wide it seemed to him, a little chap!)
Yet still the two enjoy their twilight ritual
For he holds fragile Granny on his lap.

A Brown Leaf Clinging

Knowing the autumn and your need--
I, too, am a brown leaf clinging--
I would bring you April seed
In new green phrases with a bluebird singing.
I know the dark of your grief, your yearning,
Knowing your April and June are gone;                                        
Yet there is peace in the slow returning ...
"Dust to dust" ... but preludes Dawn.
I would bring you resurgent newness:
A crocus venturing a greening slope,
A white gull wheeling against the blueness,
A lily-bloom of unconquerable hope--
Yet will a blown leaf, part of earth,
Feel the tremor of spring's rebirth.

"Unto the Least of These"

How could you do it, Granny, feed the poor
When poverty was also at your door?
"My meal was never gone, my cruise of oil,
I found replenished. Love gave strength to toil
To feed His sheep; return those gone astray--
So many prodigals need love today."
She paused to rest, then gave a fragile smile,
"It was a joy to walk the 'second mile';
I found it easy too to give my 'cloak'."
Her eyelids closed ... Sweet Granny! She awoke
To find that she had entered Paradise
And that new light illumed her dimming eyes.
I think she heard the gentle Master say,
"You did it unto Me along your way."

January Morning

Through frosted fronds upon my window pane
I longed to hear a bluebird spilling joy,
But there was only silence, crystal-clear.
Then came the merry laughter of a boy--
A little boy just climbing out of bed!
And April warmed my heart and winter fled.

Love Is Inviolate

The first white star! My dear one, still we travel
A love-illumined path as when we met,
For hand in hand we hear time's rhythmic gavel
Striking our twilight hour with no regret:

Remembering the larks in April fluting;                                          
The music of a new-born infant's cry;                                            
The joy of lusty, laughing boys saluting,
And gay starched little girlies skipping by ...

So many primrose hours--a touch of grieving--
And from them time unrolls a miracle,
For now we see, when viewing our years' weaving,
The pattern of the whole is beautiful.

The first white star ... and night ... dawn's opening gate--
Our lyric song, love is inviolate.

My Love Comes

Hush, for my love is coming!
His steed, the swift, starred wings of night.

Oh, rapture-light of the Pleiades,
Sing out in ecstasy!
Moon-Mother of magic,
Spin your mystical veil
To silver the pines, the sage,
And the sleeping village;                                                            
Thread-light the lyrical stream
He will pass on his way to me.

Night winds, blow wild and free,
Yet tenderly gentle,
For my love is gentle
In stalwart strength.
Sing my heart! Sing out with gladness!
For my love comes:
Exultant in song,
Clean in his virile manhood;                                                        
He hastens to me, his bride of the morrow.

Hush, for my love comes nearer!
I can hear his victory song.
Prepare a place for his resting:
A bed white with linens, and pure
As his love is pure.
Beautify with lilies
For his love is holy and beautiful.

Sing, O Priestess of Beauty!
Sing of a sacred Temple
Where forever-vows are spoken;                                                      
Sing of unending kingdoms;                                                          
Sing the song of eternal joy,
While I clothe myself to meet him:
Robed with fragrance and beauty
In virgin-white.

Hush, for my love is coming!
His steed, the swift, clean soul of night.

Twelve Ride to Church

The white-top buggy on each Sabbath day
Would take its journey to the little church
With twelve of us clad in our best array--
Four to a seat--At every little lurch
We children bounced and laughed in quiet glee.
We drove two miles through dusty country lanes
With silent friendly hills for company.
Our father, smiling proudly, held the reins
And called his kind "Giddap" to Nell and King.
Reaching, we plucked wild roses growing there,
Enjoyed the season's varied offering,
Our hearts attuned into the day of prayer.
That loved old white-top is again reborn
Within our aging hearts each Sabbath morn.

Improvement Era

Coverlet of Love

Love is
The coverlet
A mother weaves
And wraps around her child
To shield when disappointment's
Chill winds blow.

Summer Evening in the City

Though tethered to the earth I joy in flight,
My wings a seagull flying smoothly over
The ponds gay-trimmed with mallards, meadow clover
Tauny with baby calves; where yellow-bright
With buttercups the cool spring winds. Not trite
But new with freshness comes the call of plover
From golding seas of wheat. At dusk my rover
Eyes see a lane . . . an open door . . . a light . . . .

How good the summer evening gives me wings;
That childhood trailways carve the paths for age!
What joy--as fragrance lifts from mountain sage--
Companioning with dear, familiar things!

Someone Is Coming

Someone is coming
Over the hill,
Golden her laughter
As wild daffodil.

Someone comes dancing
Over the land
A lithe* catkinned willow
The wand in her hand.

Someone who waited
For winter to pass
Is singing her name
In rain on the grass.

Someone delightful
Advances, we know,
For in her footprints
The violets grow.

Rinsed by a shower,
His flute crystal-clear,
A glad lark is calling,
"April is here!"

* Earlier version (before Path to Home) uses "little" instead of "lithe"

Wind-Lightened Bough (Two Versions)

Spring leaving jonquil footprints called and stirred
My slumbrous will--The tree in full-blown flower
Spiralled her petals down and sang the word,
The new green word that woke the fruit-bud hour.
The golden summer danced across the field,
Crimsoned the fruit upon the laden bough;
Matured and ripened me to give my yield,
Yet hear my cry: What of the fruitage now?

Swift came the wind and shrill--Still wild it flings
Its wrath: The bough is lightened, torn and tossed,
And only one dwarfed withering apple clings--
Storm-bent and ravished, I too wait the frost.
Forlorn the tree, yet poignant-sweet my sorrow
If wind-reaped fruit will give seed for tomorrow.

(The above published in Path to Home, 1962)

Version Two:

Spring, and the slumbrous I was stirred --
The tree in full-bloom flower
Spiralling, dancing petals down,
Awoke the fruit-bud hour.

Summer, fulfilling, sang in me --
Heavily laden, the bough --
Ripened, mature for giving, was I.
(What of the fruitage now?)

Muted my song in the wind's wild shrill --
Lightened the bough and tossed:
Only one withering apple clings --
Storm-maimed, I wait the frost.

Mendicant-forlorn, the tree --
Poignantly sweet my sorrow,
If in the ripened wind-reaped fruit
Is seed for tomorrow.

(Published in The Relief Society Magazine, September 1961)

Childhood Home

How dear that home whose shrine invited rest;
With children's laughter its melodic chimes;
Where twelve of us, the Master as our guest,
Stepped in and out of Heaven many times!
Deserted now and lonely, still their gleams
Its light to mark the pathway to our dreams.

Back (l-r): Vernon, Reuben, Rozella, Stella, Joseph, Orville
Seated: Myrtle, Mabel, Anine Deem Law, Francis Joseph Law, Nomah, Minerva

Lift Your Eyes

With eyes downcast in grief and doubt,
Slowly I walked a country lane.
I failed to hear the joyous shout
Of springtime after April rain--
A violet in greening sod
Whispered, "Lift your eyes to God."

The very greenness whistled then;
My ears received the robin's call;
My thoughts escaped their stagnant fen
To hear a laughing waterfall--
My heart held room for no regrets
Weaving a lei of violets.

Dawn and Sunrise

A silver flute-call!    Night
Dons copper lace.
A white gull curves in flight
With slow, smooth grace
Through silences of space.

Tiptoeing light as a fawn,
A breeze ballets.
In a mirror-pool, a swan . . .
And a white birch sways.
Hush! Stillness speaks his praise.*

In the peace of quietude,
Calm, beautiful,
From the mountain top, cool-dewed,
Comes the miracle:
Pale gold illumes the gull.


* This version from the Relief Society Magazine. In the version published in Path to Home, the line reads "Still ... hushed ... the canyon prays."

In the Quiet Harbor

Within the harbor of tranquility

I judge the ravages of pirate years

Less harshly than the while they plundered me,

Flaunting their dreaded gonfalon of fears;

For now I know the wise, far-seeing Pilot

Charted the course my fragile craft should take

To come at last unto fulfillment's islet

Where starlings call a challenge from the brake.

Where once the winds of desolation moaned

To mock my cry, re-echoes lyric song--

Mute carillons of angels were intoned

Within despair to guide my craft along.

The dreams I thought the pirate years had killed

Now in the quiet harbor are fulfilled.

Perfect Prelude

(To Mr. and Mrs. Glen Cushing)

I never knew the mellowed years could hold
A sweeter rapture than the hours of youth;
That every shadow would be fringed with gold
And meditative leisure crowned with truth.
I always knew that ripened fruit must fall
And amber grain be gathered in the sheaf,
But never dreamed the harvest best of all;
That gentle, quiet days could be too brief.
For beauty lingers on the twilight trail;
Companions journey, hand in hand, their eyes
Seeing the Light ahead that does not fail,
Illume the opening gates to Paradise.
I never knew the mellowed years could be
The perfect prelude to Eternity.

Infinity Speaks

Be quiet, heart, as this lilied pool
Where stars are mirrored clear and cool
With a moon-canoe, its pilot peace--
Be still, my heart, accept release.

Published earlier (July 1958) in the Relief Society Magazine with different punctuation:

Be quiet, heart, as this lilied pool
Where stars are mirrored, clear and cool,
With a moon-canoe, its pilot, peace--
Be still my heart, accept release.

True Sight (two versions)

Let my eyes see above the thorns
The perfection of the rose;
And my ears hear through discordant notes
The patterned, rhythmic melody.

The above published in Path to Home, 1962. Variant version likely published in the Relief Society Magazine:

Let my eyes see beyond the broken gate
The perfect lily,
And my heart feel through strains of dissonance
The patterned rhythm.

Day Is Done

When the flames of life are embered

Slowly, one by one,

Let me hear a robin-bugle

Calling, "Day is done!"

Relief Society Magazine

I Must Choose

I cannot mend the heart that I have broken
By thoughtless, cruel words my lips have spoken;
Retrace the path my errant feet have taken
Leaving me wounded and my spirit shaken.
Before I start, not when the trek is ended,
I must choose roadways that are broad and splendid.

Staff for the Aged

Love is
The staff on which
The aged lean to walk
The quiet, silver-shadowed path
To night.

Sioux Chieftain's Prayer

Great Spirit, help me
Judge no man till I have walked
In his moccasins.

The Relief Society Magazine

The Path That Leads to Home

A little winding path is there

That calls me when I roam,

A little path all worn and bare,

The path that leads to home.

How dear the memories that cling--

An open door ... love beckoning!

A Mother's Desire

She thought to build a lovely home,
A place of beauty ... joys.
Geraniums bloomed in window sills,
And on the floor, child's toys.

This thought in mind, she washed and baked
And curled her children's hair,
Made little dresses, trousers too,
Saw little faces fair

Light up as she made lollipops
Or gave them pink ice cream,
Or listened as they lisped to her
Their childhood's fondest dream.

She realized that little souls Must day by day be fed ...
So she would talk of Christ to them
Before they went to bed.

This thought in mind, she'd kneel each night
And send her plea to Heaven,
A prayer of thankfulness and love
To God, for what He'd given.

Masterpieces

I do not need to travel far to view
Great masterpieces in the halls of fame
When from my window I can see anew
Each day, a living picture in its frame.

Sometimes I see the grass upon the hill
All green and glistening in the springtime's sun ...
Sometimes a meadow with a sparkling rill,
Sometimes the glory of a day that's done.

Sometimes a scene of flowers greets my eyes,
Sometimes a group of children at my gate ...
Sometimes I see the glory of the skies
With stars and moonlight--when it's very late.

Thus always through my windows, works of art,
By the great master, creator divine ...
Sometimes the beauty makes the tear drops start.
These living pictures--they are truly mine.