roots

published in Wreath LC’s Spring Lit Mag

my greatgreatgreatgreat grandpa david
joined the mormon church in 1835.
he was a quiet, mystic farmer man
who made money selling dreams,
interpreting visions, blabbering in tongues.
he owned an apple orchard.

joseph smith plopped his holy hands
on my grandpa’s head, imbued him
with elemental melchizedek,
spirits poured in david’s sunburnt ears,
he wept for three days, he felt god.

1800s mormon scholar orson p. pratt
theorized on ‘the god particle’ –
his answer to andromeda’s spin
and big planets, the newly-known
depths of space. he said that in the beginning,
god was in every scattered particle,
that he organized himself –
he pulled dust into clusters
and clusters into planets
at His command –
like holy gravity, like

something pulled David to kirtland –
where the lord’s new flock built
the new world’s first temple, where
david watched white-robed angels
circle stained-glass windows, where he
saw fiery corona rush from its steeple
like electrons gush from pulsar jets,

like something pulled him across the plains,
with three wives, nine kids, and a knapsack of apple seeds,
sauntering off to a brave new world,
the first to organize a briny desert swamp;

like four billion years ago,
earth was space flecks clumping together,
little chunks coalescing, blazing chaos organizing
globby and hot, swelling into gaia,
how she organized herself –

neighbors say david was quiet, but perfectly kind.
he spent the rest of his life wandering utah,
teaching podunk pioneers to grow fruit
in salt lake city and provo and st. george.
nobody knows where he’s buried now, but
his kids said he’s under one of his apple trees.