Wayne Leavitt

Who has written the song of Timpanogos Lake? 

 listen, no one seems to be singing 

  my song begins as a roaring motor

  a tractor a three-wheeler sputters to a stop 

Giving way to a symphony of high tension 

 pops and buzzes hums and shrieks 

   metalhead starlings moshing and shredding 

     between thorns of russian olives 

My song at times has cows lowing 

  an occasional doppler of cars passing 

    a drunk dazed by another sunset 

      a fox bark a cat in heat 

A dovey love song on crunchy gravel 

  cattails ringing with red-winged blackbirds 

   it’s a call and response with cautious geese 

     a dance through maracas of reeds 

My song is a hymn of soft waves lapping 

  mallards jeering as they fly over 

    my song repels jittering profit zombies 

      lake disembowelers and eco-lobotomists 

It’s a mantra drifting from palatial foliage 

  sweatdrops annotating breathing marrow

    a throat song from the burping microcosmos 

      a silent choir of golden ghosts below the ice 

Hundreds under the bulrush

a handful perched on those flowers 

    one a speck circling high overhead 

    my song has a million voices 

A dozen descending slowly to that shore 

   my lake song can tune out a freeway 

   not a train whistle or a plane

    it’s a lullaby, a song of quiet pleading 

Who will sing for Timpanogos? 

Wayne Leavitt grew up spending weekends and major holidays in Lake View at his grandparents’ farm. The announcement “goin’ down t’ the farm” or “goin’ down t’ the lake” is still the fastest way to get him to put his shoes on.