SMALLHOLDER
by Phil Hey
And I take my tedder out to the field
and drag the hay into big piles. Then
back to the truck where the fork awaits,
forking into the piles to load them
into the back of the pickup, each forkful
about the size of a county fair prize-winning
pumpkin. A fork’s better than a rake for that,
loading it in "in bunches like big birds’ nests,"
says Robert Frost, and he’s right, and maybe I am
"some good perhaps to someone in the world"
for having learned it and bringing good hay
to the horses, even this old fashioned way.
I’ve baled, yes, and gone to bed with aching arms
for throwing a hundred bales onto the wagon,
but now how much sweeter it is to imagine
the vault of an ancient barn stuffed with loose hay
not built into a wall of solid bricks
but gently laid for air to circulate
as it will, a nest for cats or a mid-day nap.
But that will have to wait. It’s ninety now
and perfect weather to put up any hay,
though I swear I sweat enough to wet it down
even weeks away from any rainy day.
But at last the truck is full to drive on back
to the low-roofed barn we’ve made to serve
once as a goat milking parlor and stall,
now our horses’ hayloft and granary.
We make the most of it we can, I think,
and at the end of loading down indulge myself
with cold water and reclining on the hay,
and think of how good life can be and is,
for a moment free of regret and the constant need
to turn back to work, another field to tend,
something else to fix, old projects hanging over
my head. Damocles with a hayfork not a sword.
Phil Hey is the author of How It Seems To Me: New & Selected Poems (MWPH Books, 2004; available from Tom Montag, PO Box 8, Fairwater, WI 53931 for $12.50 + $2 s&h). He has been writing and teaching at Briar Cliff University since 1969, and he is now a professor in the English/Writing Department. He received a B.A. in English at Monmouth College in 1964 and an M.F.A. at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in 1966. He also studied creative writing under Gwendolyn Brooks at the University of Wisconsin. In 1992 he won Briar Cliff's Duff Award for the Pursuit of Excellence, and in 1998 he was given the Literacy Award for college English teachers by the Iowa Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts. Published in numerous magazines and anthologies, Phil has several earlier collections of poetry: In Plain Sight, Reorganizing the Stars, Plain Label Poems, A Change of Clothes, Ballads & Songs. His poem "Route 39 south of Pittsville" won a Rainmaker Award from Zone 3 magazine. He has also received a dozen commissions for poems, most recently from the Sisters of St. Francis in Dubuque. As an editor, Phil has co-edited the Iowa Poets series with Zachary Pearce of Pterodactyl Press, including Michael Carey's The Noise the Earth Makes, Ann Struthers' Stoneboat, and James Hearst's posthumous A Country Man. He also edits for Celestial Light Press and The Briar Cliff Review, Briar Cliff's national prize-winning magazine of writing and art. He assisted Michael Carey in the editing of Voices on the Landscape: Contemporary Iowa Poets (Loess Hills Books).
-------------------------
A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to [email protected] . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some few high class readers. Click here for complete index of and access to "Saturday's Poems" poems published prior to September 18, 2004.
Comments