My Grandmother's Crossing

This sonnet is a remix of Gideon Burton's "We Will Cross the River" and the "Autobiography of Carolina Eliza Nickerson Hubbard Grover" (see note below).

My Grandmother's Crossing
by Kathy Cowley

I’ll be strong enough to cross the river,
the February river, dark with ice;
to take hard gifts provided by the Giver,
the gifts of hunger, want, and sacrifice.
Now was the time of trial: as we crossed
the oxen tromped the helm, the ice did part.
While freezing in the water all seemed lost;
my daughter pled, “Lord save my little heart.”
We all were saved, through mercies of our God
Yet trials, death and hardship did not cease
I know this work is true, His name I laud,
And pray each day my faith will not decrease.
     Years later, I fear sacrifice, fear loss
     Yet grandma knew His hand and voice, and cross.

---

Caroline Elisa Nickerson is one of my direct ancestors, a grandmother (seven generations back) who decided to follow Joseph Smith through her baptism in 1833. In her personal history, both Caroline's testimony and her suffering are clear. She writes, "Now this was a time to know whether Mormonism was true, each for ourselves, for many were the hardships and much suffering was the common lot of the Saints." --Kathy Cowley

We Will Cross the River

Today I was very moved by a sermon delivered at the Pleasant View 7th Ward in Provo, Utah, where I was visiting. Emily Eliason told a beautiful story about the pioneer Mormons and the courage required by them to leave Nauvoo and cross the Mississippi river in the winter. Some did not, and there were long term consequences for those that did not pay the dear price of crossing the river and the plains with the faithful. Thanks, Emily, for inspiring us. This is my tribute to your story.


We Will Cross the River
by Gideon Burton

Let us be strong enough to cross the river,
the February river, dark with ice;
to take hard gifts provided by the Giver,
the gifts of hunger, want, and sacrifice.
Let us be strong enough to walk the plains,
to leave behind what we with toil have sown;
to brave a wilderness of mud and rain
and find what can't be found in peace at home.
Let us be strong enough to bear their pain
when children weaken in the dark and cold,
when some depart while we repeat their names,
the same we prayed since birth and will till old.
     We step into the chill of certain loss,
     For we have known His hand and voice, and cross.

Photo: flickr - mpilote

Music

Music
by Gideon Burton

The silence of the drying ink, so still,
so mute. It is the opposite of song:
no strings that vibrate, no high notes to spill
along a melody that’s never wrong.
I have in corridors and concert halls
allowed the music’s ballast to lay weight
upon an errant soul. My life, my all,
I would for asking trade it straight
to feel, however shortened, one more chord
of symphony, of chorus clean and strong,
nor can I stay unwell when steeped in song.
     I praise it and in praising I will sing:
     the voice, the patterned music ever rings.

Photo: flickr - CRFish

Shakespeares of Our Own

Shakespeares of Our Own
by Gideon Burton

Oh brave new world! No longer dim and cold,
but warmed with knowledge strong and priesthood sure
that Jesus Christ restored to Joseph, bold
enough to pray all his desires pure.
Can we, the true yet stripling church, request
our liberal answering God to show us well
how we through consecration may be blessed
to dramas act, paint pictures, stories tell?
If Shakespeares are to be or not to be
among ourselves, the saints of latter days,
we must as Joseph, let our question be
what virtues lay in Shakespeare's words and ways.
     Before the Prophet’s prayer was ever said,
     he long had savored well the words he read.

Manta Ray Love

Manta Ray Love
by Gideon Burton
after Shakespeare's Sonnet #18

Shall I compare you to a manta ray?
The manta sucks salt water all the day
to siphon plankton from the waters temperate;
while you upon a straw make dainty sips.
The manta stretches twenty feet across;
your girly girth is slender in the hips.
He has a stinger; you? I'm at a loss.
But if by some dark trick of radiation
you are transmogrified into a fish,
I'd still feel flush with maritime elation:
to swim with you would be my fondest wish.
     So long as sharks can swim or algae breed
     So long I'd paddle after you with glee.

Photo: flickr - massdistraction

Currents

Currents
by Gideon Burton

A liquid in the liquid, flow on flow
on gossamer, the dark and cooling milk
the ponds and syllables of winding silk
the current's currency and what it knows
of dissolution, hot and fainting snow
of disaffections, loose and layered silt,
a ribboned helix, smoke and softened guilt,
some distillation of the planet's glow
along meridians and waning primes,
the transpositions sifted in our slowed
orations, menial and thickly wet--
The liquid's liquid, moistening the time
in lapping paradoxes crudely mowed
in patterns too resilient to forget.

Photo: flickr - M. Christian

Will

Will
by Gideon Burton
after passages from Shakespeare's Hamlet

Give me that man that is not passion's slave,
whose words untie the knots that fortune binds
behind our backs and deep inside the waves
of pushing blood; that man who when he finds
divinity will shape our every end --
rough hew them how we will -- will carve again,
reject and mock all blunt denials, bend
and shave and bludgeon, hack and dent
defiant of all auguries, content
to strive and fail but know no errant star
could force his hand. The gods are tender friends
to strivers, though they tax them deep and far.
     The earth itself with iron wills complies,
     and such a man, though mortal, never dies.

Photo: flickr - ChiBart

The Shining One

The Shining One
by Gideon Burton
after D&C 88:6-13

The Shining One, because he has ascended,
ascended from the depths where he descended;
he spans the frame where timelesses is ended
and having all transcended, comprehended.
This is the light of Christ, the son of suns
and master of the monthly moons that run
against the ermine fields of stars begun
in aching eons past when Jesus spun
the elements, the cosmos kindled bright
brought forth from brooding bosom depths divine
to shine again, again against our night
and spangle gracious knowledge, godly wine
cascading liquid light from God's abyss,
eternities with words as brief as this.

Photo: flickr - Lynn (Gracie's Mom)

---

D&C 88:6-13

He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made. As also he is in the moon, and is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made; As also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made; And the earth also, and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand. And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space— The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.

Snow More

Snow More
by Gideon Burton

Continuing its mute descent, the cloth
Of shredded winter nestles snugly warm
Amid the creases, washed in silent froth
Against the chaos, cool and stingless swarms.
A paint of latent wetness, patient, still
Accumulating feathers, humid-dry,
A blank and perfect order as they spill
Into the cooling furnaces of why.
This afternoon I kick my booted feet
Along what might have been a sidewalk or
An oily road. Such purity, they meet
Unmuddied, curious, entranced by more
Of fluff, of powder, milky wading ways.
The snow will go, yet something solid stays.

Photo: flickr - Christopher S. Penn

Begin Again

Begin Again
by Gideon Burton

Dismember anything that might remain --
arpeggios strung out along the bank
of churning chords, the octaves spanning blank
precisions -- anything that might have named
the slanted hue of evening on the stones,
or numbered currents intersecting light
and water, milky with their clotted peace.
There is a danger more than time can crease,
inherently a risk, however slight.
I feel it, marrow glowing in the bones.
Disband the braiding scents of hot house flowers,
inhale the sharpened shards of winter air.
There's only time enough today to spare
yourself, to pardon all beyond your power.

Photo: flickr - John Oram