by Jonathon Egan
Transcription:
1. Half-life
Uranium
Thorium
Protactinium
Uranium
Radium
Radon
Bismuth
Polonium
Lead
Despair? Imagined?
Hardly bestead and hungry?
We, two things wedded and
Temple-stretched taut as new cloth,
Began burning oil and wick;
Shedding time like bedclothes
Back when Pluto was a planet.
Decades. Dinners. Diapers. Duck-dogs—
Trousers rolled, and
Clocked by kitchen counter
‘Til the isotope was stable:
Matrimonium 264
2. Chrysopoeia—Or What Comes After Physics
Panacea
Gold
Mene. What? And
Mene. How?
Agape, as Seaborg stunned on Baikal’s beach,
The glory of the sun in each.
A change in the shield. Hermetically sealed.
Here’s certitude, and help for pain,
And buttered bread of holy grain,
Kefir prayers of long ferment,
A single light now radiant.
Betas, gammas fully spent
And finally in our element.
Called from the highway, linen lends.
On common ground the world ends.
Jonathon Todd Egan, DC, PhD, (BS – BYU ’98), is currently Dean of a chiropractic college in California. He is married to his wife, Heidi, for 22 years – and this poem (‘Gamos’) was written in honor of that anniversary: as both Jonathon and Heidi are 44 years old, the 22nd anniversary represented being married for their “half life” for both of them. Jonathon and Heidi have 5 children, the oldest of which just finished serving an LDS mission, and the next oldest of which is in process of submitting mission papers. Creatively, Jonathon has also released an album of faith and family centered alternative and progressive rock (called “Godspeed”) in 2016 with the band Bravery Test, available on streaming services and everywhere digital music is typically available. Jonathon served an LDS mission in Sweden, and has also served as Bishop and as counselor in Bishoprics, counselor in a Mission Presidency, Ward Mission Leader, Nursery Leader, and (most delightful of all) Primary Pianist.
