Sparkly Tights

Sparkly Tights 

Two days before I entered the LDS Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT to be a full-time volunteer missionary in the Georgia Macon Mission for 18 months, I was running up the Grove Creek Trail in Pleasant Grove, UT. 

I like the way my sparkly running tights match the snow 

Both glitter and it makes me happy.

So does running 

Even on a dark, sub-zero morning 

When my breath is visible and 

My gloves are frozen where I’ve wiped my clear winter snot. 

I ascend the mountain trail, and pause 

To see the city lights below. 

Their sparkle matches my tights, the stars and the snow. 

I am alone on a steep mountain trail, 

But I don’t feel alone. 

I own this trail. 

It’s so early and cold, no one is crazy enough to be out. 

Except me. 

And I love it. 

Fly down the hill on wings of gravity. 

This is my time. 

Footprints immortalized in the snow 

Make me reflect on my path. 

Who came before me and 

What tracks do I leave? 

 April Murdock 12.13.04

Ask

I’d like an epiphany
Send me one now, please
Answer my questions
I’m down on my knees

April Murdock
7.2004

Another One About Feeling

I want to feel
Want to experience it all
Let it go, let it out
Break down my emotional wall

I don’t know how to reach it
Is it even there?
So in my head
Am I not feeling?

Music makes me feel
I feel for others
Do they feel my feeling for them?
Or am I a rock,
an island?

I think I feel
Think my feelings
Feel my thinkings

What’s what?!

April Murdock
7.6.04

Unfathomable

The fountain is deep.
It’s unfathomable, yet I’m barely even feeling it.
Perhaps that’s why it’s unfathomable—

unable to comprehend or reach.

I feel such intense sorrow, yet writing that doesn’t seem true because I’m not quite feeling it.
I know it’s there, but it’s like I’m

floating

on a very deep pond

and only dipping my toes,
not really experiencing the water.

I want to dive, to jump in, to open the flood gates and let it flow freely.

I’m not frustrated that it seems blocked—
more confused than anything, wondering why it can’t come.
Maybe it needs to build more to break the dam.

Most of the time, though, throughout the day I feel fine, and even wonderful,
but a blippet of a moment may come where I feel the water rippling,
reminding me that I have some swimming to do.

The water doesn’t scare me.
I want to bathe, to soak, to immerse,
But I can’t get in yet.
It’s not time.

April Murdock
6.28.04