My best hope at the moment:
A Christian woman.
Ideal morals,
the family values.
Blood of religiosity
when mine runs thin.
Mormon Sunday services,
contemplating the doctrine,
never quite grasping.
Yet I keep returning—
because of the Utah missionary girls,
pretty and delightful.
Paragons of virtue.
And the preacher.
Lifting weights beside me,
gregariously,
trying to win my soul.
Mormon genes:
Utah-pure,
tall frames,
steady hearts,
obedient will.
Northern European stock—
British Isles converts
swept into a great Scandinavian tide:
Danes,
Swedes,
Norwegians.
Viking blood is still alive.
Like a dormant storm,
ready to shatter the mundane.
Pioneer selection,
raw Darwin at play.
Polygamists,
harvesting the strongest seed.
Ten wives,
tenfold the lineage
of survivors.
She stands taller than I expected.
I’m 6′4″ myself.
Already I see our sons—
long-limbed,
leaping toward the rim,
One day, wearing Jazz purple.
John Gartner writes,
In The Hypomanic Edge:
America,
is built by the near-manic,
immigrants with fevered dreams.
They stand
on the threshold.
When I dive into the abyss,
time and time again.
Manias that shatter,
depressions that swallow.
The wrecks and psychotics,
never reached Utah.
Mountain-bred clarity,
purifies my lineage.
What remains,
a clear fire.
Unmedicated,
sleepless,
brilliant.
My children,
like Brigham.
Eyes wide,
books stacked to the ceiling.
Conquering days,
with no pause.
My beloved child is coming.
Keep that ancient joy
alive in your veins.
You drink from a source now.
Eemu Julius 