S e g u l l a h
Poetry
Michigan Rainbow: Flight to the Sealing
Far above Superior today
I glimpsed our heaven married
To the maiden Earth, and saw her slip
onto her glistening finger
that double wedding band;
I thought: how little we can search
from ground to sky
only to see perchance one half
of one beribboned band,
much less two; ringing round rosie
in all their glory.
How often life is like the marriage band—
We wear half above and half behind and
glimpse not both together.
How delicious to be a finger and see all!
For what we see is a beginning is an ending,
For what we see is an ending is a beginning,
From far she is slight and delicate,
and we rush to meet her warm arms outstretched,
Small, glorious,
Encompassing lives, covenants, lakes.
Cane Testimony: Jacob 4:5-8
As I have many sisters, someday
I shall have a daughter,
(as you are all my sisters, and all my daughters)
and she will look at me, with my
three legs and one arm,
raising her and her sisters to God,
pointing their souls toward Christ,
And say, Mama, how is it
with your third leg and sleepy mind,
that you believe, and try, and do,
pointing your soul towards Christ,
despite all this (by which I mean this cane
and no leg left to stand on) and I
shall twinkle back at her, and say
little daughter (for you are all my daughters
and all my sisters), I know that Christ
was born and chose to live a perfect life
and suffer in it pangs far worse than these;
to die
and loose those chains which bound the dead
to live
and loose those chains which bind the living
that one day, sinless, perfect, whole
2 legs, 2 arms
I can kneel to Him on perfect knees; but until
I do and try and believe, not despite pain,
but because of it. And my daughter
will look and see, that I am made
not less beautiful by a third leg,
but more.
When she played house as a kid, HEATHER L. HARRIS BERGEVIN never imagined yelling, “Don't put Ovaltine on the cat,” and “Sitting on the baby is not a good choice!” She majored in journalism at BYU in the early nineties, and hopes someday to finish up. Most of her ideas appear in the wee hours of the morning, when she can hear herself think for minutes at a time, and when the only sleepy whining is her own.
