The afternoon
Led me to a broad basin of sage
Bound with edges curving, sloping
Up into juniper
And pinyon
My feet
Took me through a section of sage
Almost knee-high
The brush led me to weave
My way slowly
Through the flat
And then,
All at once
In the still, unchangeable peace
Of the desert
A sudden chill came over me
Raising the hair on my neck
Causing me to pause
In wonder
There, amid
The field of sage
In open space
And clean air
I felt a man, unseen by eyes
Walk with me
Share this space, this region
And leaning into time
I could almost feel his ancient breath
On my neck
Stooping, I picked up a flake of churt
That sat under a branch of sage
And lifting the thin, broken
Shard of rock
In my palm
My heart began to burn
And a voice
Both clear and direct
Came to me,
Saying: “The man who worked this rock
Is here with you now”
So I knew
That he was not sharing my space
But rather
I had come to share his
May 18, 2021
Otto De Groff has spent most of his life living in Utah. As a young man, Otto’s father often took him (along with his brothers) to western Utah, where they spent days exploring, hiking, and rockhounding. These experiences gave Otto a rooted respect and love for Utah’s wild places, especially those found along the state’s western edge.
After serving an LDS mission in Mexico, Otto studied at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation. Currently, Otto is pursuing a master’s degree at BYU in the same field, with a special emphasis on bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva D. K. Bailey) forest ecology and variation in growth rates of these trees through time. While studying at BYU, Otto met and married his wife, Maddie, who is from St. George, Utah. They live together with their son, Ferris, in Utah Valley.