Holy Places

I watch the sunset from the corner of Country Mill and Western Drive and note how rooflines echo Frary Peak on Antelope Island—bent pyramids black against the sky and rimmed with light like glowing magma.

These homes are little mountains of the Lord, hollows filled with congregants who follow daily ritual—eat, sleep, breathe, read, pray, succor, sacrifice, speak key words from memory again and again and again,

and when one forgets, another whispers cues into inclined ear, restoring the rhythm. All are connected by lines of light, tethered to a central point so as day draws down and wraps shadow around and between them,

they are not alone. God, who knows what grows or crumbles within, holds all loose threads in hand and pulls them taut, thrums them like the strings of an instrument to fill His temples with music.

—Merrijane Rice