3 Poems for the Great Salt Lake

These poems were first published in Consecrate/Desecrate: The Great Salt Lake Anthology, Community Writing Center, 2022, pgs. 252-256.

​Hymn to the Great Salt Lake

1.
White shining beautiful sea
inland roads of streams to be.
Vast shores on acreage stretch,
Great Basin drained in steppe.
2.
Pure snow, falling from the clouded sky
lake effect nature, dozen’s feet high.
Ecology’s difference, in salt water’s cast
unknown to human, except First Nations’ past.
3.
Salt jumpers and quicken quacks,
the ducks fly for their bug snacks.
Brine shrimp stole their way
where gulls dance at play.
4.
See floating men and women
breeding Deseret kinsmen.
Boats, oaks, rutters, stir the pot
while Saltair peaks, open for a spot.
5.
Water gleaming on surface salt
dried an eon ago, in land’s fault.
Mines of Morton dot the land,
reminds us—modernity’s grand.

​Spiral Jetty

Jutting out,
swirling onto the lake.
Spiral Jetty shapes the salt
and gives pleasure with its wake.
 
Stooping low,
over the rocks on the hill.
Passersby swing past the Jetty arm,
for the algae red shoreline on the sill
 
Meditative walk,
I set feet in the path.
Gone are the people before,
taken up what the Lake’s given, hath.
 
Ancient sea,
Bonneville remnants seen.
No more crabs and kelpien fishes--
simple sand, wind, and the brine shrimp, keen.
 
Deadman’s work,
Smithson’s hands shaped the born legatee.
A beach day, where the adults play--
earthen sculpture serving entropy.

Yashica-Mat TLR
Kodak E100, Color Reversal 120 Film
Saturday, September 17, 2022, 6pm.
Spiral Jetty, UT.”

Case of the Missing Water

​“Water, water,
water everywhere,
and not a drop to Drink.”
 
Not here, not there,
not the salt water said Coleridge--
let it go to the sink.
 
Such waste,
when fresh water flows freely.
Dropping down, flying around
making its way, slipping down slink.
 
Let it dry.
Let it make haste for the lawns!
More for our alfalfa fields,
and more to wash our stink!
 
Great Salt Lake,
bounding freely eons ago.
Cascading on the Snake River,
into the big brine dink.
 
Drained dry
in a mere 170 years.
Dying too late—not enough tears,
to cry in sync.

Yashica-Mat TLR
Cinestill 50D, 120 Film
Saturday, September 17, 2022, 12pm.
Antelope Island State Park, UT”