Landscape
— Iowa
by James
Hearst
This is Michael Carey for Voices
from the Prairie a weekly sampling from the rich soil of Iowa’s literary
tradition. Today’s poem is "Landscape – Iowa" by
James Hearst. This poem from 1976 and is one of the very few poems in which
Mr. Hearst speaks directly about the whole state of Iowa, instead of some aspect
of the farm. In it you can feel his awe and reverence for this place we call
home and for all the people in it. Yet he freely admits in no way will he ever
be able to name successfully its true depths or glory. Like all blessings it
is a divine mystery we all both partake of and live by the grace of.
Landscape — Iowa
No one who lives here
knows how to tell the stranger
what it’s like, the land I mean,
farms all gently rolling,
squared off by roads and fences,
creased by streams, stubbled with groves,
a land not known by mountain’s height
or tides of either ocean.
A land in its working clothes,
sweaty with dew, thick-skinned loam,
a match for the men who work it,
breathes dust and pollen, wears furrows
and meadows, endures drought and flood.
Muscles swell and bulge in horizons
of corn, lakes of purple alfalfa,
a land drunk on spring promises,
half-crazed with growth – I can no more
tell the secrets of its dark depths
than I can count the banners in a
farmer’s eye at spring planting.
"Landscape — Iowa"
by James Hearst from Snake in the Strawberries published by Iowa State
University Press. It can also be found in Selected Poems by James Hearst
published by the James & Meryl Hearst Center for the Arts, and in the
Collected Poetry of James Hearst to be published in 2001 by the University
of Iowa Press.
For Voices from the Prairie and Humanities Iowa, this is Michael Carey hoping you continue to hear the music blooming all around you.
Biography
Mr. Hearst was born in 1900 and died in 1983. Though paralyzed at a young age from a tragic accident that left him confined to a wheelchair, Mr. Hearst continued to farm all his long life and to teach at the University of Northern Iowa.