A New Star Rises

Old carols--

Peace ... good will ...

Are worn threadbare.

The words:

Angels, shepherds, Magi,

Stable and moving Star

Obsolete.

My gifts:

A new pin-up--my girl in her wedding gown;

(She married the fellow at home.)

A new rifle.

The cry of a child dying--

(Not of the Babe, new-born)

The footfalls of communism in the distance--

Not receding--

And two years in the army.

I am only a soldier--

But a new star rises in Nevada,

Holy and Chill.

Yet Man Heeds Not

The coyote, trapped, escaping, keeps a wary eye;

The mother robin learns to wait the stealthy tread;

Yet man, divinely sired, heeds not the warning cry

Of nations, buried, but sins on then mourns his dead.

The Relief Society Magazine