In Sharlee Mullins Glenn’s epic poem about the premortal Council in Heaven and the Fall, Brighter and Brighter Until the Perfect Day, light is currency. The waxing and waning of each spirit’s light is the barometer for good and evil. “‘When we choose amiss, our light recedes,’ / said one whose earnest countenance shone fair” (4). Jesus Christ is described as “more luminous by far than all the hosts / of spirit children in that realm of light” (5), and He tells His Parents, “‘a portion of my light I would bestow / on each of these … a spark of luminescence for their soul’” (10). El, or Heavenly Father, teaches His spirit children, “‘The hoped-for aim is that you all become pure conduits of light—receiving light, / bequeathing light in one continuous flow’” (12).
The epic poem is an honored tradition in religious poetry—many of us struggled to decode John Milton’s Paradise Lost or Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy in our educational pasts. Other Latter-Day Saints have also tried their hands at epic poetry—Orson F. Whitney penned the epic Elias, excerpted in the modern poetry anthology Dove Song, and in this century, poet Michael R. Collings published The Nephiad, a poetic reimagining of scenes in The Book of Mormon. But Glenn’s poem does something unique—she paints in evocative detail the foundational story of our religion with enough simplicity to keep it accessible while deftly addressing several thorny theological questions, shining the light of her interpretations on issues that trouble Latter-Day Saint women in particular.
The epic opens with not one patriarchal God but a united pair who “spoke as one, though two” (3). Throughout Brighter and Brighter Until the Perfect Day, Mother (Elah) and Father (El) are unified in their purpose, but there is a gentle push and pull between Them as They teach Their children—”Their Mother smiled, and love blazed from Her eyes. / ‘The plan is that you make your way back home.’ / Then Father spoke. ‘It will be hard,’ He said” (4). Their masculine and feminine energies are distinct in the poem—They are different beings. Glenn beautifully draws out examples of how this dynamic plays out in Their archetypal marriage.
The presence of a Mother in the poem also becomes key to understanding a host of sticky theological issues—the types of questions that many Latter-Day Saints put on a “shelf” of things they don’t fully comprehend. After a valiant spirit child, Ora, volunteers to sacrifice her opportunity to obtain a body in order to be “witness, comforter, and guide,” (17), the Mother tells her daughter that She will lay down Her body for a season in order to be present with Her spirit children throughout mortality. The words are a shadow of Jehovah’s sacrifice—instead of becoming fully embodied and mortal, She lays aside her celestial body so She can be present with each child, an ever-present comfort. While I’d heard others speculate that the Holy Ghost could be Heavenly Mother, the theology never made sense to me before seeing it spelled out in iambic pentameter. While this theory is of course not part of canonical doctrine, it answers other questions as well—Mary’s immaculate conception of Christ, for example, feels less strange to me when I envision Heavenly Mother as the conduit.
Glenn weaves modern scientific sensibility when her tale arrives in Eden. Elohim observe Their creations as they gradually evolve into “a hominid sufficiently / evolved, with brain to reason and to choose” within “the graceful system set” (32). The story imagines that “by chance, it was a male” who first became capable of agency (34), and the rib of scripture is illustrated rather as DNA sampled from Adam’s side—”the code to modify and fashion Eve” (36).
The forbidden fruit, too, receives a re-imagining. Rather than a mysterious plant with intellect-stretching properties, Elohim forbid Adam and Eve from partaking of animal flesh. The serpent tempts Eve to consume a lamb—an apt symbol for the loss of innocence and the required Savior. I have always felt a little wavery on what was supposed to happen, knowing Satan didn’t frustrate the Plan but also very cognizant of the transgression that occurred in the Fall. Glenn’s poetry erases that unease in one couplet: “Because you chose to eat the fruit forbidden, / this prepar’tory chapter is cut short” (49). The Plan has not been frustrated, but it could perhaps have been a smoother transition with more preparation. Mother God sends Her children out into the world with a coat “made from the fleece of that slain lamb” so they can “enrobe [themselves] in mem’ry of / the Lamb of God, who’ll give his life for you” (50).
Are all the theological imaginings in Brighter and Brighter until the Perfect Day true? With my limited understanding, it’s impossible to say. But the possibilities Sharlee Mullins Glenn illuminates are certainly lovely and expansive to contemplate. The lines are vivid but entirely accessible even to a casual reader of poetry, bringing life and color to the stories we’re used to reading in tiny black and white print.
