---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Borlase, Jack
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 18
number: 8
published: 1915-06
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Jack Borlase, "A Utah Poet on the Grand Canyon," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 8 (June 1915): 679.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1808unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera1808unse
start_page: 679
end_page: 679
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-06)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1808unse
  publication_year: 1915
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Utah Poet on the Grand Canyon

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Utah Poet on the Grand Canyon
    Jack Borlase is not entirely unknown to readers of the Era. He
has heretofore favored them with at least one characteristic poetic
contribution.  The Literary Digest recently gave him this notice,
and published his poem which follows
     "Out West, in a Utah village called Kanab, there is a man
named Jack Borlase, who edits The Kane County News.             Occa-
sionally Editor Borlase forsakes prose for poetry.      And it is real
poetry, lacking sometimes in polish, often roughly idiomatic, but
genuine in feeling and strong in expression. The poem below, in
spite of such colloquialisms as 'when I acted most infernal,' is a
thing of beauty and power."

                   The Message of the Grand Canon
                               BY JACK BORLASE

       A purpose He had when He builded me,
       When He covered me o'er with rock and tree,
       And the purpose He had I will tell to thee;
            For it seems that you do not know.      .

       The lynx and the lion, the lean coyote
       And the mountain-sheep and the bearded goat
        Have ever and e'er understood the whys
       And the great wherefores of the painted skies
           Where the waters of myst'ry flow;
         But the "all-consuming" brain of a man
          Is a bit too   weak to fathom the plan.

       Since the days when the Master came and said,
       "Now be a mountain instead of a bed,
       And grit your teeth while I cut your head
           And your trunk and your tail clear through,"
       I have often wept and I've often smiled

       When I've thought of the poor fools, running wild;
       And to tell the truth, there are moments still
       When I weep my weep and I laugh my fill,
           As I listen to some of you;
         But the message I bring is a vital thing,
         And a worthy song is the song I sing.
       The old Piute and the Navajo,
       Though their skins are bronze and their ways are slow,
        Both listened    to   me in the long- ago
           When I acted most infernal;
       And above their failings, above their fears,
       And beneath their smiles and beneath their tears,
       Is the   hope of a happy hunting-ground,
       And the hope of a future to be found
            Yea, faith in     a life eternal.
         And this is the message I bring to you,
         Which is old as the hills and ever new.