Poetry Archives - Wild About Utah

December 8, 2025December 8, 2025

Mourning Cloaks and Witchy Skies

Nora's embellished May Swenson poem: "Unconscious Came a Beauty," as a butterfly-A means to emphasize the butterfly poem subject. Poem copyright acknowledged-Photo Courtesy Shannon Rhodes — Nora’s embellished May Swenson poem: “Unconscious Came a Beauty,” as a butterfly
A means to emphasize the butterfly poem subject.
Poem copyright acknowledged
Photo Courtesy Shannon Rhodes

I’m sitting here today with first grader Nora Baggaley and USU student teacher Ashlyn Prince. Just steps away from where we spend our days at Edith Bowen Laboratory School on the campus of Utah State University, we find Swenson Park, built on the lot where May’s childhood home once stood. She spent her elementary school days here, she was a student at Utah State Agricultural College, and she moved east to become a writer. During her lifetime May Swenson wrote her way into fame by recording memories riding her willow horse, enjoying strawberry juice dripping down her chin, and describing the relationships that develop when a baseball bat, ball, and mitt meet. Eventually she became Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. I love that she wrote shape poems about simple things like insects.

Insects? Did you say bugs? Coming into student teaching, I wasn’t too thrilled when I heard about the focus we have on bugs. From the beginning of the school year, we were already in the Logan River, digging out stonefly larva. By the second week, I was already writing a book for my students about why I do not like bugs. Here’s some of my book “Definitely NOT the Bug Girl.” I loved butterflies; they had beautiful wings. That was until I saw them closer. They looked an awful lot like grasshoppers with wings, and if you were paying attention, I hate grasshoppers! Why did I never think they were big, sticky, scary insects too? They did come from caterpillars…I should’ve known!”

Throughout the semester, from katydids flying at my head to being chased at recess with grasshoppers, I’ve grown to love the stories and discoveries the children have with bugs. Now today, I see a bug and instantly start to wonder: How did it get here? Where is it going? What would my students think about this? I could almost say I love bugs…

Mourning cloak butterfly (pinned), Courtesy & Copyright Don Rolfs 2010 — Mourning cloak butterfly (pinned)
Courtesy & Copyright Don Rolfs 2010 https://wildaboututah.org/springs-earliest-butterflies/

Well, I love bugs.

Swenson’s “Unconscious Came a Beauty” captures an encounter with a butterfly. She isn’t certain about which kind of butterfly, so she offers two choices based on her descriptors. She must have been outside writing when one landed on her hand long enough for her to notice it, know it well enough to describe it.

I like how her words are in the shape of a butterfly and the wiggly way she typed the title.

When I wrote “Definitely NOT the Bug Girl,” Nora and her classmates encouraged me to include even more chapters about different kinds of insects. They wanted chapters of how I felt about roly polys, katydids, and ladybugs. I never really had an opinion about ladybugs. They were cute but a little frightening when they would fly. Finding them at recess became not so scary to me. Did you know they start their life as black and orange larvae?

How’s this for a poem inspired by May’s shape poem?: Hungry crawls a lady bug larva
To our recess rock riddled with yellow aphids dots
And stopped our games
Orange-striped black
Alligator-wiggling on its six legs
We sat wondering, and Asher brought one to class
Where it crept out overnight as a familiar friend.

Aurora Borealis from Logan Utah
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Besides bugs, did you know May also wrote about space topics we know, like astronaut landings, gibbous moons, shadows, and her ghost moon? She called it, “the albino bowl on cloth of jet.”

In November, every student, and teacher, was given a nature journal paper to observe the full moon that night. Sadly, the sky was full of clouds and only a faint glow was visible. Amazingly enough though, we could see the northern lights a few days later! It was a beautiful sight, and made up for missing the November Beaver Moon.

Night Sky Nature Journal Entries by Ashlyn and Nora
Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

This is a two-voice poem we call “Witchy Sky.”: The beaver moon reminds me of cotton candy in the dark.
It reminds me of a flashlight shining through my finger.
The northern lights are Glinda and Elphaba.
I notice a lot of thick clouds.
I can’t really see the shape of the moon in the clouds but still it glows through them.
I wonder what does the moon feel like?
How bright would the sky have been if there were no clouds tonight?

May Swenson remembered classmates folding paper airplanes and releasing them in the classroom when their teachers’ backs were turned. In a clip from a 1969 recording “Poetry Is Alive and Well and Living in America,” she says, “My poems sail away like that, I don’t know who picks them up, who may be reading them. It’s lovely to think that people are reading my things, especially that they are being stimulated to write their own poems.”

Don’t worry, May. We are inspired by your Mourning Cloak, Ashlyn’s aphid-eaters, Nora’s night sky auroras, and students, young adult and age 6, immersed in words every day.

This is Nora Baggaley, Ashlyn Prince, and Shannon Rhodes, and we are Wild About Utah, May Swenson, night sky poetry, and of course, bugs.
Well, maybe bugs.

Nora, Shannon & Ashlyn in the Studio
Courtesy & Copyright Stu Baggaley, Photographer

Credits:

Images: Classroom art Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Mourning cloak butterfly (pinned), Courtesy & Copyright Don Rolfs
Nora, Shannon and Ashley in the UPR Studio, Courtesy & Copyright Stu Baggaley
Audio: Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org/
Text & Voice: Shannon Rhodes, Nora Baggaley, and Ashlyn Prince, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

BEETLES Project, The Regents of the University of California, https://beetlesproject.org/resources/for-field-instructors/notice-wonder-reminds/

Hellstern, Ron. June Fireflies, Wild About Utah, June 19, 2017, https://wildaboututah.org/june-fireflies/

Ross, Fran, 1969. Poetry is Alive and Well and Living in America. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaKRjiqGizQ&t=1s

Spencer, Sophia with Margaret McNamara. Bug Girl: A True Story. https://www.amazon.com/Bug-Girl-True-Story/dp/0525645934

Strand, Holly. May Swenson, Wild About Utah, April 14, 2009, https://wildaboututah.org/may-swenson-a-utah-poet-and-observer-of-nature/

Swenson, May. Unconscious Came a Beauty. Poets Speak, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6LSVzBTKs&t=6s

Tevela, Irina. May Swenson in Space, Washington University in St. Louis, July 19, 2019, https://library.washu.edu/news/may-swenson-in-space/

September 5, 2022September 12, 2022

Up a Fork in the National Forest

Up a Fork in the Cache National Forest: Cache National Forest Courtesy & © Patrick Kelly, Stokes Nature Center https://logannature.org — Cache National Forest
Courtesy & © Patrick Kelly, Stokes Nature Center
https://logannature.org

There’s a place I like to walk, when I don’t know where else to go, up a Fork in the Cache National Forest.
It’s got all that I want, and all my dog needs: good views and plenty of fast clear water.Up a Fork in the Cache National Forest

It starts off hot and dry, breaks you in quick, but soon the sun’s not so bad.
Walking along the way, helps my mind stray, and soak up right where I am.

The office, the traffic, the honey-dos and the chores all slip freely from my mind,
As I watch my dog sprint, over gentian and mint, and love being as free as the wild.

Being out there and free, helps me think and see, that I’m a part of instead of apart from,
This beautiful world, full of imperfect others, that with time are revealed as imperfect Thous.

This world, this here, this beautiful now, I choose and choose nowhen else,
Because today I see beavers, and grasshoppers, and eagles, and get to wonder when the ducks will again fly south.

My dog and I continue, to hike along the trail, until we come to the Cottonwood Graveyard,
There we stop, maybe stay, for a while and a bit, and she swims after sticks thrown in ponds.

After she’s had a cooldown, we keep hiking uptrail, into the thick of evergreen scents,
My calves start mooing, and my dog she keeps zooming, a bobsledder hot in the chute.

When the trees do break, and the land opens again, we cross the river one last time,
It brings us into a place, folks once knew back in the day, as the sawmill with the best oxen in town.

Me and my dog, we’ll linger there for a minute, and I’ll think how happy we are,
That this place was here, but isn’t any longer, or else the boon would not be worth the trial.

On our way back to the car, it’s hard work to keep your mind far, from the valley to-dos in the not far ahead,
But I remember why, I take the time to get out under the sky, in the wild to clear my over-civilized head:

You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, but he also can’t drink unless he’s at that trough.
So even if today’s got you feeling astray, remember there’s good liquid if you’d like it not too far off.

So go out today, or tomorrow or Thursday, make it a formal appointment if it’ll keep you true,
Doesn’t matter the place, as long as there’s space, to keep an eye out for the moments which pull the awe to you.

And when you find them, because if you look hard you will, take a minute and breathe in the crackling air’s hum.
And remember that smell, and keep it deep in your heart, because that’s the wild wind that makes all it and us one.

I’m Patrick Kelly and I’m Wild About Utah

Credits:

Images: Image Courtesy & Copyright © Patrick Kelly, Photographer
Audio: Contains audio Courtesy & Copyright Friend Weller, J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin
Text: Patrick Kelly, Director of Education, Stokes Nature Center, https://logannature.org
Included Links: Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Additional Reading

Ohms, Sarah, Bridgerland Audubon Society, Logan Canyon Hiking, https://LoganCanyonHiking.com/

The Allen & Alice Stokes Nature Center, https://logannature.org
Included Links: Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Kelly, Patrick, In the Eyes of a Bear, Wild About Utah, July 27, 2020 https://wildaboututah.org/in-the-eyes-of-a-bear/

March 1, 2021March 12, 2022

A Questionably Lodgepole Pine

Sometimes I have a hard time coming up with fun or fancy things to say for the radio. It’s just a thing that happens. A Questionably Lodgepole Pine

When that happens, sometimes I’ll just go outside and pick something happening around me, or something I think of when outside and write about that. Sometimes or almost always, creativity for me is not clean-cut. It can be kinda formulaic: talk about things you see, feel, and think in a way that hopefully helps folks balance listening, their imagination, and hopefully hope all at the same time. It’s at least an ideal.

But sometimes instead what comes out when you’re outdoors, is stuff that is kinda dumb and pretty funny. Truth be told, I prefer dumb funny things. I think stuff that is funny is better than stuff that isn’t funny. Funny stuff is fun.

And so, here’s me sitting in a big gold puffy coat and well-napkined Carhartts in a foldable lawn chair under gray winter sky, and jack is happening around me. No birds tweeting. No fresh tracks. Not even no dim ray of sunshine. Just hands as cold as cold hands can be. Then I see a dead skyward and questionably lodgepole pine. I thought it could maybe have a second life as a flagpole, the name I thought it could be and all. And then I wondered…

If trees wove a flag
What color would they fly
Regardless I doubt they’d much care if it was green
Beings they’ve got no eyes

No eyes no ears no tongue no nose
Not even fully developed human hands which spring from their roots so

And then I thought…

If ducks could sing opera
Like dark Verdi arias
I think they’d quack less good
But dig in no less mud

No lips no fur lays eggs webbed toes
Brains like walnuts, only knows where south goes

And then…

If clouds could pick
What unit of measure that they preferred
I’d reckon volume’d be tricky
Be hard to pin down where the mass does now occur

No lungs no feet bring snow turns sleet
Don’t even got clocks to keep time.

And that’s where it ended. Stream ran Utah dry. And that’s ok.

And even though when I read what I wrote to my partner she gave me that look of, “you sure?” I couldn’t help but think, “yup!” so I laughed and smiled wide.

So here’s me saying to you that sometimes, when you go looking for inspiration about the world from that old all-about-us well that is the world, don’t turn up your nose on silly things. Funny things that pop into your mind, even if they are dumb. Because once, someone probably thought something wild and dumb that ended up being kind of neat. Or something that they thought about. And who knows, maybe one day we’ll have to ask ourselves again…

If trees wove a flag
What color would they fly?
Would they measure it in cubits,
Or some other unit from the sky?

I’m Patrick Kelly, and I’m Wild About Utah.

Credits:

Images: Image Courtesy US National Park Service, Yellowstone Collection, Bob Stevensoon, Photographer https://www.nps.gov/features/yell/slidefile/plants/conifers/pine/Page-3.htm
Audio: Contains audio Courtesy & Copyright Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections
Text: Patrick Kelly, Director of Education, Stokes Nature Center, https://logannature.org/
Included Links: Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Additional Reading

McNally, Catherine, How to Cure Writer’s Block: Go Green, Medium, October 7, 2019, https://medium.com/@catherine.mcnally/how-to-cure-writers-block-go-green-e0c00e8e614

Lodgepole Pine, Range Plants of Utah, Utah State University Extension, https://extension.usu.edu/rangeplants/shrubs-and-trees/LodgepolePine

August 24, 2020March 12, 2022

Up a Fork in the Cache National Forest