Our Collective Poems to the Great Salt Lake
On February 9, 2024, our community gathered to connect to the Great Salt Lake through poetry by lake-facing poet Nan Seymour and art by photographer Kelly Hannah. Together, we created two beautiful poems to our lake, for all of us.
Our collective poem, created live through participant contributions:
May Beauty Gaze Into Your Mirror Face
You brighten my heart with hope for a new day.
I am your daughter. Your soul nourishment, ceaseless.
I am your daughter. Your soul flourishing, ceaseless.
My child body floated in your body.
My child body floated in your body,
a body so much larger than my own.
A body so much larger than my own.
To know you is to constantly be assured.
To know your confidence is to be assured
the world has lived many lives through you.
The world has lived many lives. Through you,
I now understand water to be the sacred source.
I understand now Water, you are the sacred source,
your heart bright with hope for a new day.
Our full collective poem, weaving together all of the lines submitted by every member of the audience:
1.
Ancient mother, you are dying.
You cry through eons of grace.
We, too, are fierce and imperiled,
sick and loving, tired and full of courage.
We taste your tears.
We’re unsure, but on your shore,
we feel alive. Water, you are alive,
a fierce body that has survived–
a body so much larger than our own.
Still and moving, constant as love,
present as pain, alive as all things.
When we are in or around you, we are reborn.
We love your sparkling gaze.
We place our hands along your surface.
Pebbles glisten. Your depths contain
vast polarities.
2.
Once we had everything.
We had ice so thick coyotes walked across it.
We had stories recorded in the sky.
We had garter snakes on the banks,
picnics on the shores of Lake Nokomis,
awe in the body of Lake Superior.
We swam in cold, clear water
from the shore of Bayfield to Madeline Island.
We had everything–
Within a womb full of brine cradled by mountains,
We had safety and innocence.
We had flocks of birds, open space,
burrowing owl babies with silly felted heads.
We had kelp forests swaying in Monterrey,
We had salt smells and magic of bison.
We had antelope. We were enveloped, skin-to-skin
in formless, flowing hot springs.
We had sandpipers circling and landing,
circling and landing. A monarch butterfly on a milkweed leaf.
March snowstorms belied the coming spring,
making balmy weather all the more miraculous when it came.
We had everything–
Low tide funk smell, marsh hawk hovering.
Mercurial waves building and crashing, remaking the shore.
Patterns in sand, crunch beneath feet, Jetty under water.
A chorus of birds you cultivated with your vital essence.
You tumbled over the rocks after heavy rain.
Serenity, depth, unknown yet tender knowing.
You gently lapped on cold, quiet mornings.
Your reflection enlivened the end of day.
You danced like diamonds in just-right angles of sun,
Your wave sounds soothed our restless minds.
Your surface, an oracle, showed us everything at once.
Your smooth rocks held so much knowing.
We had everything–
Your floating island mirror, a myriad of colors.
Epic mountains held us like a mother
within their edges. We nestled like children
between two towering ranges.
When we looked out over your waters,
we were taken from the everyday world.
Once, we knew you would always be,
holding us in your endless expanse.
3.
Praise the warmth you still provide.
Praise your gentle lullabies.
Praise Deaf Smith Rivulet,
threatened footpath from home.
Praise being high on Frary Peak with clouds and sun.
Praise walking by wetlands, hearing spring frogs sing.
Praise eagles. Praise the shapes you take on leaves.
We never expected to find such beauty.
Praise your fresh embrace.
Praise the feeling of jumping in, being fully submerged.
Praise spreading out from a single point,
inhaling, expanding, exhaling, shrinking.
Praise being able to float.
Praise the weight falling from our shoulders.
Praise the clean feeling of moving
as you take our stuckness.
Praise the way your light reflects,
distorted and curiously beautiful.
Praise the horizon between air and sea,
the places where heaven and earth meet.
Praise constant and eternal breath.
Praise stillness. Praise the lives you sustain.
Praise being engulfed. When you curl around our ankles,
we feel small and large at once.
Water, you quench all thirst.
Praise the way a refreshing swallow feels going down,
the way you feel in our throats, stomachs, and heads.
Praise the way our feet go numb when wading in a stream.
Praise access to open space.
Praise earthy, green grass blazing through the wind.
Praise sand covering our bodies.
Water of life, how you shimmer in the morning light!
Praise the women who brought us to your edges
when we didn’t want to live here anymore.
Praise the way your waves said
I’m your home.
I’m your origin.
You come from me.
Praise fluffy snow of lake effect,
the way you shatter into sparkling.
Praise our years along the Jordan,
the birds flying overhead.
Praise your true soul’s language;
transcending the spoken.
4.
Water, you give life to all things.
You brighten our hearts with home.
You birth love.
You will have the support of our species or our absence.
May we return to compassion.
May we be with your great heart.
May we be filled with life and abundance.
In water. Of water. For water.
You are the soul we remember living in.
You teach us to flow, sometimes turbulently,
sometimes calmly, always with grace.
When we are lost,
may we find each other again.
Enormous thanks to lake-facing poet Nan Seymour for her generous work on this stunning community ode to our dear Great Salt Lake, and for all of her continuous advocacy for the lake, and therefore all of us.
We encourage you to follow these individuals and organizations to get involved and stay informed:
Nan Seymour: Website | Instagram
Save Our Great Salt Lake: Website | Instagram
The Great Salt Lake Collaborative: Website