Because There Was a Grove
Two hundred years ago, elm, beech, and cherry,
hophornbeam, maple, hickory, ash, and oak
grew thick upon this land from coast to prairie,
but most were felled to feed poor frontier folk.
Their fields of wheat and corn replaced the trees
except upon the hills and near the streams,
where each farm kept a woodlot as a source
for lumber, fuel, and maple trees to yield
sweet syrup, ground where nature kept its course
and blessed the landscape, gracing barn and field
with places wild, of refuge from life’s fray,
green groves where people sometimes went to pray.
It seemed to them perhaps God listened best
if they in silent solitude inquired.
If sheltered by a canopy of leaves
they might obtain the blessing they desired:
prayers for fruitful harvests, pleas for rain,
release from famine, suffering, want, or pain,
appeals for mercy rising though the trees,
searching for a God who loved and cared.
How many mothers knelt there, fathers too,
imploring that a dying child be spared?
They pled in hope that nature’s course be stayed,
not knowing much of Him to whom they prayed.
A force, a spirit, some all-seeing power
had spoken truth to prophets long ago,
but now in Reason’s age His word had ceased.
The time to hear from Him had passed, and so
no one expected Him to answer with the spoken word;
they only hoped somehow that He had heard
and might then intervene. Thus, no one paused
to listen: they believed the heavens closed.
God had long since stopped revealing truth.
The Bible was enough, so no one posed
a question thinking God might speak and answer a petition,
none ‘til God prepared someone to listen:
a boy unlearned and pure enough to think
it literally true what he had read:
if wisdom were the need, one well might ask
and then receive. As James had clearly said:
God would speak the truth and not upbraid.
Sufficient faith might venture unafraid.
Because he to a nearby grove retired
and asked in faith, he saw the Father’s face.
He heard His voice and learned that God is real.
Because there was a grove, a sacred place
where Joseph knelt to pray, I too can know
the Father of my spirit and the Savior of my soul,
and need not fear to place my now and future in their care.
Because there was a grove, I know They’re there.
hophornbeam, maple, hickory, ash, and oak
grew thick upon this land from coast to prairie,
but most were felled to feed poor frontier folk.
Their fields of wheat and corn replaced the trees
except upon the hills and near the streams,
where each farm kept a woodlot as a source
for lumber, fuel, and maple trees to yield
sweet syrup, ground where nature kept its course
and blessed the landscape, gracing barn and field
with places wild, of refuge from life’s fray,
green groves where people sometimes went to pray.
It seemed to them perhaps God listened best
if they in silent solitude inquired.
If sheltered by a canopy of leaves
they might obtain the blessing they desired:
prayers for fruitful harvests, pleas for rain,
release from famine, suffering, want, or pain,
appeals for mercy rising though the trees,
searching for a God who loved and cared.
How many mothers knelt there, fathers too,
imploring that a dying child be spared?
They pled in hope that nature’s course be stayed,
not knowing much of Him to whom they prayed.
A force, a spirit, some all-seeing power
had spoken truth to prophets long ago,
but now in Reason’s age His word had ceased.
The time to hear from Him had passed, and so
no one expected Him to answer with the spoken word;
they only hoped somehow that He had heard
and might then intervene. Thus, no one paused
to listen: they believed the heavens closed.
God had long since stopped revealing truth.
The Bible was enough, so no one posed
a question thinking God might speak and answer a petition,
none ‘til God prepared someone to listen:
a boy unlearned and pure enough to think
it literally true what he had read:
if wisdom were the need, one well might ask
and then receive. As James had clearly said:
God would speak the truth and not upbraid.
Sufficient faith might venture unafraid.
Because he to a nearby grove retired
and asked in faith, he saw the Father’s face.
He heard His voice and learned that God is real.
Because there was a grove, a sacred place
where Joseph knelt to pray, I too can know
the Father of my spirit and the Savior of my soul,
and need not fear to place my now and future in their care.
Because there was a grove, I know They’re there.
Poet‘s comments about “Because There Was a Grove”
Ever since I started writing metered verse, I had always wanted to write a poem about the First Vision, but I could never figure out how to put it into a context that communicated its singular role in my own personal faith and testimony, and by extension, its importance to the individual testimony of each member of the Church. Finally, after several failed attempts, something that a member of my ward (Jeremy Dustin) said in a Sacrament meeting talk about an experience he had in the Sacred Grove primed my imagination. So much in my life, indeed, the value of my life itself, all I believe God to be, rests on the reality of that extraordinary event. If it never happened, I’m a fraud. But it did happen. I’m as sure of it as I am of anything, and so I don’t fear. As you read these brief comments, I hope you appreciate the importance of poets and poetry. My poem may not do the feeling justice, but it makes for a far better attempt than anything I can say in prose.
