A Lost Child and the Sacrament
Gathered by Jim Richards
Meridian Poetry Editor

When I was a teenager, I remember going to the hospital to see my newborn sister. She was premature and very ill. I remember seeing her tiny, pink body struggling to survive. Tubes and monitoring devices tangled around her wrists and ankles. She hardly moved. Despite our prayers and fasting, she died within a few days. Before her death, my father was able to give her a blessing, and a name: Eliza. Although this was a sorrowful time for our family, our grief was stabilized by the promises of eternal covenants.

Experiences like losing a newborn, having a still-born child, or suffering a miscarriage, can cause us to ask profound questions. While eternity promises many hopeful answers to our questions, mortality often makes us wait. Thankfully, we are blessed with the restored gospel, and sweet reminders such as the sacrament, to make our waiting more manageable. In fact, it is often the woes of mortality that make eternal reminders such as the sacrament more meaningful to us. This pair of poems by Linda Adams engages both the mortal and eternal moments, and makes us think about the relationship between the two. I hope you enjoy them.

Two Poems by Linda Adams

For My Lost One

My child, where have you gone?
Which side of this veil are you on?
Tiny crumpled empty shell of earth,
Does your soul await a second chance at birth?
Or have you moved along ahead of me,
Your work waiting in the realms I cannot see?
Small comfort lies in things as yet unknown.
This my musing in the cleansing ebb and flow
Of tides of time, swirling life with death:
Where are you, who knew not birth nor breath?

Thoughts Heard by God During the Sacrament

Dear Sweet Jesus,
Have mercy on me a sinner.
oops i forgot to set the timer on our dinner

I offer unto thee
brittany always gets more crayons than me

My broken heart, a spirit contrite.
wonder if jeff will call again tonight

I'm aware it's been a long, long while,
where did i put my nail file

Since I took part in this ordinance
should've e-mailed source code back to vance

And broken bread with these, my friends.
good grief wheat bread again

As to my lips this cup I press,
why'd sister tyler wear that dress

I think of thee, Redeemer true
it's such an awful shade of blue

And pray, O Jesus, I can learn to be
ooh i'm glad he didn't sit by me

As purified and worthy found
shh don't look don't turn around

As these who live more free of sin.
wonder who let that guy in
In Thy Holy Name, Amen.

About the Poet
Linda P. Adams lives in Lee's Summit, Missouri, has been happily married for twelve years, and has five young children. She graduated from BYU in 1990. Recent work has also appeared in Limestone Circle, Irreantum, and Friction magazines. Her first novel, Prodigal Journey, was released in July 2000 by Cornerstone Publishing and won Cornerstone's Fiction Book of the Year Award. She is working hard to complete the sequel, expected out by Fall of 2001.

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Jim Richards, Meridian Magazine's Poetry Editor, grew up in Salt Lake City as the fourth child in a family of ten. He spent each summer in Montana, where he developed a deep love for mountains, lakes, and forests and activities such as hiking, waterskiing, and riding motorcycles. He has enjoyed various experiences abroad, including a semester in Jerusalem, a mission to Costa Rica, an excursion through southern Europe, and a term studying theater in London. He completed his B.A. and M.A. in English at BYU, and is currently a doctoral Cambor Fellow in the creative writing program at the University of Houston. His poetry has appeared in Literature and Belief, BYU Studies, and elsewhere. He lives with his wife and two sons in Houston, where he serves as second counselor in the bishopric of the Spring Branch Ward.

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