Molly Fisk: Lapsed Unitarian in Mormon Country

Spring’s leafing out is orchestral,
not to ear — merely a flutter —
but for the eye: bright fingertips
green as new frogs, overtaking
the plums’ white blossoms, coral quince,
magenta crab apple, the year’s
vast unfolding in strict chaotic
order: almond, peach, Gravenstein,
Bartlett, old trees someone planted
on our less-than-half an acre.
By the time my additions open —
fig, persimmons, pomegranate —
the mountain ash and maples wave
too thickly to see beyond. Some bird
shat a mulberry seed whose skyward
reach is nine feet now at least
and equally wide, for perfect shade.
We welcome random luck, even
the stained porch boards because this
purple fruit’s a mess, the brittle branch
the wind brought down in March.
Secret oasis with a line of Harleys
blazing by, a neighbor’s ardent rooster,
and the carnal new frog descant
our own rainbow.

~~~

Lapsed Unitarian in Mormon Country


That restless feeling on the last day, your friends exploring
slot canyons, vague threat of rain but clouds scudding too high.
Cattle beside the road sandwiching a fence. I remember

learning in college how New England held their livestock in
but farmers in the southern states fenced them out.
This could be socially relevant but not as far west as Utah.

Silly to draw conclusions from a 2 p.m. lecture I heard 48 years ago.
The other snippet was Northerners laid out a grid system for their towns
with housing lots, church, and dry goods around a common square

for grazing, right angles far as the eye could see, while in the South
they used “metes & bounds” a method of walking around drawing lines
however you wanted, skirting a swamp, including a copse of vigorous

pecans, and ending up with a plot that had no visual symmetry.
As the child of generations of Yankees I still envy this approach
and it scares me. License, permissiveness, no rules at all! Hell.

Without constraint, how can you rebel? The altitude here has made me
woozy and nostalgic. And the wind. I want to go home and I don’t.
700 miles alone in the car is a mixed blessing. Tomorrow I’ll cross

the Hogback and the Escalante, past the entrance to Bryce with its swarm
of top-heavy tourist traffic, down the coral Red Canyon to Panguitch
and Beaver, coming up by midday into the Great Basin where God,

according to legend, washes His hands.

~~~~

Copyright 2026 Molly Fisk

Molly Fisk is a poet, radio commentator, life coach, writing teacher, painter of barns and mason jars full of water, mentor, speaker, feminist with a capital F, political activist, sister, aunt, cousin, godmother, honorary grandparent, not-very-old elder, swimmer, former banker, one-time sweater designer, long-walk taker, rearranger of furniture, color maven, nature lover.