{"id":26519,"date":"2014-09-14T10:03:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T16:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=26519"},"modified":"2023-11-20T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2023-11-20T21:28:08","slug":"sunday-blog-read-brad-l-roghaar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/sunday-blog-read-brad-l-roghaar\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Brad L. Roghaar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brad\"<\/a>READ LOCAL First<\/strong> is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each month, 15 Bytes offers works-in-progress and \/ or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction and memoir.<\/p>\n

Today, 15 Bytes features Ogden-based Brad L. Roghaar<\/strong> who provides here four as yet unpublished poems. His latest manuscript, A Simple Stand of Aspen Trees, <\/em>the title poem of which is included below, is a collection of works dealing with places of retrieval.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sunday Blog Read<\/strong> continues to accrue a distinguished group of established and emerging Utah writers for your review and enjoyment.<\/p>\n

So curl up with your favorite cup of joe and enjoy the work of Brad!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BENEATH A STAND OF ASPEN<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a small stand of aspen trees,<\/p>\n

a story,<\/p>\n

not too far from where you live,<\/p>\n

not far from the room that defines<\/p>\n

your dreams\u2014neither opening nor closing\u2014<\/p>\n

where you sleep all clothed<\/p>\n

within your own warm breath.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This closed gathering of trees<\/p>\n

is the living narrative<\/p>\n

of its own growth<\/p>\n

and, therefore, must do for our own.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You may choose to follow this small story.<\/p>\n

You may choose to slip from the crease<\/p>\n

of your muted dream,<\/p>\n

to arrive, as you might do again,<\/p>\n

at this place\u2014this stand of aspen trees.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here you have seen the dry leaves fall<\/p>\n

each year, after year, with the regularity<\/p>\n

of all thin but persistent memories.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You have watched as if this falling, alone,<\/p>\n

were a certain center of reference\u2014<\/p>\n

as if this falling could cradle<\/p>\n

the accidents that make our lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You may wish to follow the leaf back<\/p>\n

through the certainty that is its flight,<\/p>\n

back to its phloemic origin,<\/p>\n

to its abandoned point of attachment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here, after the leaf is gone,<\/p>\n

remains the unmistakable scarring\u2014<\/p>\n

the cicatrice\u2014the loud evidence<\/p>\n

that the leaf was there\u2014<\/p>\n

that we are here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And when the snow comes<\/p>\n

and softens the entire world,<\/p>\n

it softens this same aspen grove,<\/p>\n

gathers on the ground and seeps beneath it<\/p>\n

with the purity of what you suspected<\/p>\n

all along:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your mother is buried here,<\/p>\n

and your father is buried here,<\/p>\n

and all your issue after you<\/p>\n

already know the depth of loam<\/p>\n

regenerated each year, after year,<\/p>\n

one layer atop another, spread out<\/p>\n

like a warm woven blanket.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Beneath this familiar ground,<\/p>\n

beneath this snow,<\/p>\n

beneath the simple grace of this stand of aspen,<\/p>\n

all precious bones are gathered, protected,<\/p>\n

and kept.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And when this story moves through spring,<\/p>\n

when the growth is full and green;<\/p>\n

this ground of burial,<\/p>\n

this place of healing,<\/p>\n

this center of retrieval gives up<\/p>\n

its own warm nature:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here in this small stand of aspen<\/p>\n

the dark and waiting leaves,<\/p>\n

high above the ground,<\/p>\n

turn their gauzed and muted underside,<\/p>\n

green, in the slow breeze of the morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They vibrate, these small leaves, tuning forks<\/p>\n

of your too short tenure here.<\/p>\n

Like a slim sequined party dress,<\/p>\n

they hold the promise of all your desire\u2014<\/p>\n

these leaves shimmer here in the light.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All good mornings might begin here,<\/p>\n

in this particular stand and reach of trees\u2014<\/p>\n

this small and solitary world<\/p>\n

of white and green, of black and yellow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What a Small Voice, at Once Lost, Might Tell Us<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Provide)<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dark nights\u2014we all have them.<\/p>\n

But at those times (when they bleed into day<\/p>\n

and become indistinguishable) how can we believe<\/p>\n

they will ever leave?<\/p>\n

Any small creature caught and alone<\/p>\n

will begin to chew.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We forget about a river\u2019s bank\u2014how it gives<\/p>\n

to what must be a terrifying erosion<\/p>\n

before it becomes its new self,<\/p>\n

shining in the comfort of its water-speak.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are strange creatures\u2014how our need<\/p>\n

for others never waxes nor leaves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We all remember how we once needed to hear<\/p>\n

a particular voice (though we could not name it),<\/p>\n

and how we waited for it in that dark.<\/p>\n

Sometimes this is our miracle: to hear that voice\u2014<\/p>\n

or more\u2014to speak it to another.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alone will find its wanted place\u2014<\/p>\n

we need not help it to our own.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If we were not so closed, could we not know loneliness<\/p>\n

in some other way, would we not then burst open<\/p>\n

in our own appointed season?<\/p>\n

Would we not be whole\u2014both provider and provided for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who are we to miss even one single flower<\/p>\n

wishing to bloom?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let there be more than commerce between us.<\/p>\n

Let us talk, one to another:<\/p>\n

we should not cover our windows at night,<\/p>\n

no thin and makeshift blanket of convenience.<\/p>\n

Let us make our reach warm and heavy with words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We sometimes believe there are no words that will do,<\/p>\n

that all rivers pass by all too quickly.<\/p>\n

But this is not true\u2014always the words pool<\/p>\n

around our tongues\u2014open.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let us provide the soft, still pools in the river.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

COMING CLEAN WITH AGE<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okay, it\u2019s time to come clean,<\/p>\n

pared to the truth<\/p>\n

like a white slice of apple<\/p>\n

held under a kitchen tap.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have not come to what I could be,<\/p>\n

have not opened my own ribs<\/p>\n

and offered up a beating viscera<\/p>\n

that seems even close to<\/p>\n

a metamorphosis of beauty\u2014<\/p>\n

or even an approximation\u2014any flower in bloom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was young, I was young.\u201d<\/p>\n

What more can be said of that?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are all lacking\u2014brought up short\u2014<\/p>\n

we often do no good.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But nothing comes close to the abandonment<\/p>\n

of pity\u2014hearing that call and mistaking that voice<\/p>\n

as nothing but nothingness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I cannot say that I have not taken my pleasure<\/p>\n

being above it all\u2014my own approximation of god\u2014<\/p>\n

running across the desert floor on all fours, sniffing<\/p>\n

what I would and leaving what I wished.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And let there be no mistake:<\/p>\n

there are things left dreadfully damaged\u2014<\/p>\n

left like refuse in a plastic bag<\/p>\n

to heat and feed upon itself<\/p>\n

\u2014waiting for a puncture.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But this might be far too harsh.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Life opens in the same way\u2014<\/p>\n

punctual and random<\/p>\n

and reaching for air out of a bag of blood and salt\u2014<\/p>\n

and more, it holds\u2014even in the desert.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were young, we were young.\u201d<\/p>\n

What more can be said of this?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I believe in forgiveness\u2014<\/p>\n

the dark grave of the world resurrected,<\/p>\n

made new each morning,<\/p>\n

forgiven as bread to wheat<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

as juice to berry\u2014the thrashings and stompings\u2014<\/p>\n

one thing made into another\u2014<\/p>\n

everything forgiving the change<\/p>\n

far before it makes itself complete.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ONE LONG SEASON<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is true that every heart breaks<\/p>\n

breaks more than once<\/p>\n

insistent and absolutely<\/p>\n

faithful to each breaking<\/p>\n

curiously alone and childless<\/p>\n

dropped whole into the empty abyss<\/p>\n

of the hollow breast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You might recall the clear crack of dry wood<\/p>\n

the smoke of that sound so heavy in the air<\/p>\n

that odor so pure and something like cedar<\/p>\n

like cedar but much more brittle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Perhaps the heart breaks like buried bitter-root<\/p>\n

if there is such a thing<\/p>\n

if it could be dug up and dried<\/p>\n

as clean and white<\/p>\n

as a cracked femur in the desert.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The heart is a full and lumpy bag<\/p>\n

come loose at the stitching<\/p>\n

and tossed into a corner<\/p>\n

where many things are spilled out<\/p>\n

rattling and hissing upon the floor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is all and always unfinished business<\/p>\n

seeds in the wind<\/p>\n

leaves on the surface of the frozen ground<\/p>\n

the hard ground of breaking and healing<\/p>\n

breaking and healing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both insistent and indistinguishable<\/p>\n

they follow each other so closely<\/p>\n

like tiny fish this marriage of break and heal<\/p>\n

break and heal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is just one long season<\/p>\n

the heart and its blood<\/p>\n

the pod and its sticky milk<\/p>\n

released to heal itself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Copyright, Brad L. Roghaar, 2014 (used with permission)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Roghaar<\/a>Brad L. Roghaar is Professor Emeritus at Weber State University where he taught literature and creative writing for over 30 years. He was Editor of the nationally award-winning humanities journal Weber Studies: voices and viewpoints of the contemporary west<\/em> for seven years, and he founded and directed the English Department\u2019s Creative Writing Emphasis.<\/p>\n

Roghaar\u2019s poetry has appeared in several journals and magazines including \u201cUtah Arts,\u201d \u201cBYU Studies,\u201d \u201cExpremier,\u201d and Utah Centennial Anthology of our Best Writers<\/em>. His first book, Unraveling the Knot: Poems of Connection<\/em>, won the Pearle M. Olsen award, and he was named Utah Poet of the Year.<\/p>\n

As a life-long admirer of America\u2019s own Mark Twain, he has appeared at several public events as a decent facsimile (with wig) of the author\u2014a role that he relishes. He welcomes correspondence at blroghaar@weber.edu<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

READ LOCAL First is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. Each month, 15 Bytes offers works-in-progress and \/ or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary non-fiction and memoir. Today, 15 Bytes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":26521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Brad.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 10:46:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26519"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72029,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26519\/revisions\/72029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}