“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