Love Floats Pale and White by Steven L. Peck and the Pity It Invokes.

I genuinely felt sad after reading this poem.  This is an odd occurrence for me because I usually absolutely hate poetry.  Maybe I shouldn’t say that, but I should probably just be honest J.

I think one of the main reasons I really liked this poem is because it’s written like a personal essay.  I would assume logically that he wouldn’t write about himself as a she or a her or going through a pregnancy.  Because of this, I’m assuming that this isn’t a personal essay from Steven, but rather it’s perhaps a personal essay that he wrote for someone else.  I could be wrong, but that’s my guess.

Anyway, I think Steven did a great job of capturing the emotion of the event.  Steven writes of a woman who has just woken up from an operation in the hospital.  Her family files in, and she is able to recognize all of her family members except her son.

The part of the poem that illustrates this is very captivating:

Fear turned into relief as her eyes and countenance recognized each face and she whispered their names:  her husband Jimmy, her oldest daughter Chandra and her husband Michel and their new baby Brittany, her three other girls, Becka, Tera, and Rachel, but who was this she asked, “Is this one of your friends Rachel”  She said to the shy young boy, “Mom it’s me,” said Kendel.

This part made me almost want to weep.  I have to admit that I had to read through the poem a second time to understand all that was going on, but it was really moving once I finally figured it out.

The poem definitely takes on a Mormon point of view after this point.  There is mention of her reading her journal to find that she knew that her son had chosen her to be his mother.  This maybe isn’t entirely a Mormon concept, but it definitely is a part of Mormon culture.  Also, the poem focuses on this woman and her wondering if she’ll ever get those memories back in the resurrection (the resurrection is mentioned specifically).  Steven definitely helps the reader see the point of view that a Mormon would have in a situation like this, and many of the thoughts that would be very common among Mormons as they go through trials such as these.