"Over Utah in January" - 10 Years Later

Ten years ago today, I attended the funeral of my grandmother Margaret Driggs in Salt Lake City, Utah. I had little idea what to expect, since I had never met any of the extended family via her second marriage. (My dad's stepfather, Dr. Howard R. Driggs, was much older than Grandma. He was born in the 1870s into a polygamous Mormon family with 22 children. I have never been Mormon.) And all I could think of, as far as Utah terrain goes, were the salt flats we had driven through way back in 1976 on a family vacation. I was in for a surprise! On the airplane, looking down over Colorado and Utah, my breath was taken away by the gorgeous snow covered mountains. I took out my journal and started writing, and my poem "Over Utah in January" was born. 

Today, I post this with love for my step-second cousins whom I met at the funeral and reception near Salt Lake City. (Thank you to Dan Christensen for reminding me of the anniversary of the funeral.)

Over Utah in January 

by Virginia Knowles

I am in the sky looking down on

Vast speechless stretches 

  of frozen white

Curved round and round by

Slicing crevices and streams

And human roads 

  abandoned though they be

Foothills then soaring 

  mountains beyond

Majestic tall yet distant small

From the sky where I look down

Clustering pines

  (wilderness steeples)

Defer to barren ground below

Shedding to it cumbering, 

  nurturing snow

Upright spires green

Evergreen over branches, trunks, 

  rough and woody brown

Rooted deeply into ascending slope

Yet as living arrows aiming high

To the sky where I look down 

Up and over mountain towers, fly

Peering through mottled fog outstretched

Amid earthy upturned layers, variegated ripples

Shadow clouds now upwisping 

  sharply angled peaks

Oh! These are of no human 

  construct or design

Not even marked by 

  footprints in pristine snow

Just fingerprints, signatures divine

Where winter earth meets winter sky

Yet in the valley 

  I see manly habitation

In patterned rows, 
casual curves beneath the mist

Nestled in yet beckoned 

  to a deep and high communion

Only bold ones venture 

  beyond certain fringes

Strive upward, breathe hard, 

  ascending steep, behold

Some faithful cannot climb 

  but still lift souls to see

To know and long to know

Others seem content merely to stroll 

   in evenness beneath, below

Oblivious to wonder

I am in the sky looking down

Then gazing up in awe at Him

Who gazes down in grace on me below

On me, who sees and longs to know