Laura D. Card, “Homesteading,” Religious Educator 1, no. 1 (2000): 105.

Laura D. Card, “Writing Lesson, 1874, Great Basin No Paper,” Religious Educator 1, no. 1 (2000):106.

Laura D. Card, “The Garden of Sarah DeArmon Pea Rich,” Religious Educator 1, no. 1 (2000): 106.

Poems by Laura D. Card

Laura D. Card

Laura D. Card was a doctoral student in the University Writing Program at the University of Utah when these poems were published.

 

Homesteading

I spring from our dugout door,

shovel blade raised,

Thrust

to sever fangs from coils;

Leap

Two feet further

to snatch infant Lydia in

quaking aspen arms

from Payson dust,

then stagger

into our one chair.

Last night a mouse

ran cross my face,

then James’s.

Not one week since

four-year-old Moroni

presented a tarantula

on a juniper branch.

James shook

green scorpions from his

boot this morning

before plowing,

not the first.

There was not such

in all green England

where we owned naught.

Here we own

faith

and 160 acres.

 

Writing Lesson, 1874, Great Basin No Paper

Charcoal twigs

scrape across small palms—

letters

copied from torn scraps

of Deseret News

pasted with flour and water

onto slabs of wood.

 

The Garden of Sarah ​DeArmon Pea Rich

The call goes out to England,

“Bring seeds of snowball

and potato,

celery and hedgerow,

plum,

as seems you good.”

“We have

5,000 peach seedlings

ready to set out.”

Yet not one rose,

until she coaxed

Californian cuttings

into bud.

–Laura D. Card