ORISON
By Sunni Brown Wilkinson
Photography: VisitUtah.com
Your first love is the battering wind against your face, whipping your hair Gorgon-like. Brothers in cutoff jeans and buzz cuts sing Nirvana into clips of wind and exhaust. The bed of the ’69 blue Chevy rattles, and your ex-hippie parents sit up front, inside a stillness, cradled by camp chairs and coolers. They are younger than the youngest aspen. Logan Canyon breathes birdsong and green. After the turn at Bridger and the winding loop, you find it at the back of the campground: Logan River. Unpack sausages, eggs, premade pancake mix, Sunny D. Unpack the hallowed griddle, ready for a prayer of heat. Unpack your childhood, summer mornings inside mountain mist, wild raspberries, fireweed, river turning every voice, every story you know into song.
Sunni Brown Wilkinson’s poetry is forthcoming in Western Humanities Review, Coal Hill and Ruminate. She is the author of two poetry collections, teaches at Weber State University and has placed second in both poetry and nonfiction in the Utah Original Writing Competition.