The Family Proclamation
By
J. Carl Brooksby
Memorizing poetry is an easy thing for me.
I still remember poems that I learned when I was three.
I’m always memorizing things, to exercise my mind;
I have here in my memory, poems of every kind.
That speech that President Lincoln gave at Gettysburg that day
I learned when in seventh grade, and it’s in my mind to stay.
The songs my mother sang to me so many years ago
Come quickly to my memory as now I come and go.
The Family Proclamation? How tough can that job be?
I’ll knock it out by Saturday. Just you wait and see.
Paragraph one is easy. This will be a snap!
I’ll memorize the second, and then I’ll take a nap.
But I got hung up on characteristics of eternal gender.
When I finally learned this portion, I was considering surrender.
Paragraph three is beautiful – of God’s plan it gives a view,
But that fifty-one word sentence is more than I can chew.
It tells of man’s progression to a destiny divine,
But if it means I have to learn this, that destiny’s not mine..
My wife said, “Honey, give it up”, but I just gave a grin.
I knew that by hard work and perseverance, I could win.
So when she said to give it up, I started right back to it,
And, you know folks, I soon found that I just couldn’t do it.
But I’ll read that treasured document twice weekly for a year.
I’ll be guided by its precepts, and the Prophet I’ll revere.
I hate to be a quitter, and to win would be sublime,
I think that I could learn it if they’d only make it rhyme.
But if the bishop and his counselors, this pronouncement can recite,
I’ll keep tryin’ to memorize it until I get it right.
