O, Legion, bright-gurgling from
feral-lot oak, your chorus
a swash of eddies in this bare-bones
estuary, the chords of your queuing
a too-easy drift into metaphor (see
the measure, the notes, pitch, and
rhythm, progression and keeping time)—
Embellish your undersong— Thrum, preen,
chirrup, plume, swell—psalter us through
winter’s pent-up gloom that we might pass,
again, into blooming, that we might swoon,
again, with delusions of flight and forgetting,
with the frenzy and violence of greening,
deep-breathing, and reverie— For you are
remembering’s burden, its
waking epiphany, its imminent tide—
Amen
Tyler Chadwick, an award-winning writer, editor, and teacher, received his Ph.D. in English and the Teaching of English from Idaho State University. He teaches writing at Utah Valley University and has three books to his name: two anthologies, Fire in the Pasture: 21st Century Mormon Poets (Peculiar Pages, 2011) and Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry (Peculiar Pages, 2018), and a collection of poetry and essays, Field Notes on Language and Kinship (Mormon Artists Group, 2013). He lives in Ogden, Utah, with his wife, Jess, and their four daughters.
