WHENCE AND WHEREFORE

By Patrick Madden


Not in the vast mirror of clear sky in the Great Salt Lake. Not in the caked salty crust of the receded ancient sea. Not in the towering solidified orange blobs of hoodoos. Not in the steadfast delicate arches. Not in the crisp blanket of frozen white over crags and crevices. Not in the vast underearthed connections of roots and shoots breaking out reaching for orbit, but perhaps something like it: a Halloween afternoon, sun bright and warming, and hundreds of people patrolling our neighborhood calling out the names of my sons, aged 1 and 3, gone missing, seriously missing, as fire trucks blare their sirens and neighbors and officers all focus on my family’s dire need to find our boys. Which we do. Together.


Patrick Madden, the author of the essay collections “Disparates,” “Sublime Physick” and “Quotidiana,” has taught at Brigham Young University and lived in Utah since 2004.