{"id":54677,"date":"2020-09-06T08:44:57","date_gmt":"2020-09-06T14:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=54677"},"modified":"2020-09-07T13:34:19","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T19:34:19","slug":"several-poems-by-bob-rees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/several-poems-by-bob-rees\/","title":{"rendered":"Several Poems by Bob Rees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"READ LOCAL First represents Utah\u2019s\u00a0most comprehensive collection of poets and authors. This month we add Bob Rees to our archive of distinguished writers. Rees\u00a0<\/strong>is Director of Mormon Studies and Visiting Professor at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He’s\u00a0taught at UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Berkeley. He was a Fulbright Professor of American Studies in the Baltics.<\/p>\n

Rees’s poetry, which has appeared in various journals, magazines, and anthologies, is gathered in\u00a0Waiting for Morning\u00a0<\/em>(Zarahemla Press, 2017).\u00a0His study of the Book of Mormon,\u00a0A New Witness to the\u00a0World<\/em>, has just been published by By Common Consent Press.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

Ashes to Ashes<\/strong><\/h4>\n

What remains of you<\/h4>\n

is in a box<\/h4>\n

In our bedroom.<\/h4>\n

I want to touch you<\/h4>\n

but fear if I did<\/h4>\n

I would turn to ashes.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Growing Up<\/strong><\/h4>\n

When I was eleven,<\/h4>\n

I knew little of heaven<\/h4>\n

but much of hell,<\/h4>\n

which is just as well<\/h4>\n

because it kept me in fear<\/h4>\n

of demons far and near,<\/h4>\n

of witches and devils,<\/h4>\n

their midnight revels,<\/h4>\n

phantasms in flight,<\/h4>\n

demons of fright,<\/h4>\n

monstrous scions<\/h4>\n

of bears and lions–<\/h4>\n

all riding in wagons<\/h4>\n

pulled by dragons,<\/h4>\n

their red-eyed evils<\/h4>\n

hearts of devils.<\/h4>\n

Then I turned twelve<\/h4>\n

and put them on the shelf–<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

went back to seven<\/h4>\n

and hoped for heaven.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Solstice<\/strong><\/h4>\n

(Hadlee Ruth Murdock:<\/h4>\n

\u00a0 6.29.18-12.21.18)<\/h4>\n

At the turning from spring,<\/h4>\n

an imperceptible fear<\/h4>\n

of winter.<\/h4>\n

The deceit of summer\u2019s<\/h4>\n

sun and greening<\/h4>\n

seduced us<\/h4>\n

past<\/h4>\n

falling leaves<\/h4>\n

and first snow.<\/h4>\n

Now, at the longest night,<\/h4>\n

the shadow turning<\/h4>\n

toward light,<\/h4>\n

she is gone–<\/h4>\n

lilacs and lilygrass grieve.<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/h4>\n

Masks<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I see\u00a0them coming toward me<\/h4>\n

then angling away.<\/h4>\n

At Costco<\/h4>\n

they are everywhere:<\/h4>\n

white, green, black,<\/h4>\n

even plaid and polka dotted,<\/h4>\n

one a red bandana.<\/h4>\n

We try to read one another\u2019s<\/h4>\n

incomplete faces<\/h4>\n

with unanswerable questions.<\/h4>\n

Outside,<\/h4>\n

a mother and her toddler,<\/h4>\n

both bandaged,<\/h4>\n

even a golden retriever<\/h4>\n

who shakes its head<\/h4>\n

from side to side.<\/h4>\n

Later, on TV, a doctor<\/h4>\n

looks over his veil at<\/h4>\n

nothing<\/h4>\n

he could name–<\/h4>\n

like the end<\/h4>\n

of the world.<\/h4>\n

Bob Rees recently completed his edit of Why I Stay: The Challenges of Discipleship for Contemporary Mormons<\/em>. The work is forthcoming from Signature Books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Rees\u00a0is Director of Mormon Studies and Visiting Professor at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He was a Fulbright Professor of American Studies in the Baltics. His writing has appeared in local, national, and international publications. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":54679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54677","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\/2020\/09\/Bob-Rees-4.20D.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 04:53:29","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\/54677","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=54677"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54719,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54677\/revisions\/54719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}