Poetry Contest Honorable Mention
What Abish Saw
Weapons falling: swords, spears,
arrows, knives,
metal clanking metal,
final clashes before great clods
(warm earth-smelling
loam) covered up the brightness
of all our crimson sins.
All my dear ones kneeling,
open-palmed, bowing to greet death,
praising God, they died,
and died, and died.
Almost I fell too, until
my eyes met those behind the sword
which faltered, faltered, crumpled,
and we wept as one
at so much loss.
My only son, girded
up for war, sword as bright
as one his father buried, long ago.
Its awkward heft weighs heavy
in his thin young arms.
His eager eyes
hold mine.
Emily graduated from BYU in Comparative Literature and now lives in Lindon, Utah, with her three kids and husband. She has spent much of this past year nursing a new baby while reading the Wall Street Journal.
