1997
This Journey May Appear
July 1997


“This Journey May Appear,” Ensign, July 1997, 44

“This Journey May Appear”

I

No room? But oh, there must be!

I cannot leave these precious things behind

For lustful hands to seize and gloat upon,

I could not bear it! Let me see—

Beneath this spinning wheel—could not we find

A little space? You’re sure? Oh, John,

Please hold me while I look a last farewell

Upon this home we built and loved so well.

II

This cannot be the one place

Above all others God has chosen for his saints!

For this—we left our lands and home behind,

And braved the grasping desert waste?

For this—we hushed the sorrowed mother’s plaints

Lest staking death creep unawares, and find

The rest of us? O God—pray help me see

The blossom that this hiding place shall be!

III

This is the place, my son—

The ensign your great-grandpa helped to build

So long ago; you don’t remember him—

Or me—but brave men like him fought, and won

The desert over to their way of living; tilled

The stubborn soil, and blessed it. Years may dim

Our struggle, but none better knows

The tears that fed this blossoming desert rose.6

  1. Relief Society Magazine, July 1948, 465.