METAMORPHOSISTS

By Todd Robert Petersen


I am a child of the rainforest, raised among emerald mosses and fern and the decay of nurse logs, hosts of the next generation. My children live among twisted sage and juniper and the redrock eons exposed in road cuts and slot canyons. They know an absolute clarity of blue sky still new to me after 20 years. I have followed the coil of the “Spiral Jetty”; shared a sweat lodge with a Paiute park ranger, polygamists and drifters. I have prayed in pews alongside addicts, widows, cancer survivors and grifters, people who have lost their faith but found their way. There are unexpected temples and shifting congregations, like the colors of stone as the sun passes over us and sinks in the West.


Todd Robert Petersen is the author of four works of fiction, the most recent of which is “Picnic in the Ruins.” He is a professor of English at Southern Utah University, where he teaches creative writing and film studies.