Newly wed,
she peers out the window
at the Great Salt Lake below,
pools of colored water she has never seen before.

Three years later,
this is to be her place.
She loves the mountains,
loves The Lake,
loves her life.

Nine years more,
What God had joined together,
another woman tore asunder.
“Now you can return home,” her mother
decrees from afar.

Broken and small, she sits at the shore.
A lone bird circles and lands,
water rippling as wings fold in.

She realizes I too have landed.
I am already home.

Note from the poet: The last afternoon I spent with my Dad was at the Great Salt Lake on December 14, 2019. Had I known he would die in a crazy accident 4 months later, I would have chosen again to spend my last afternoon with him at The Lake.