At The
River's Edge
by Phil Hey
This is Michael Carey for Voices from the Prairie a weekly sampling from
the rich soil of Iowa’s literary tradition. Today’s author is Phil
Hey, a professor of English at Briar Cliff College in Sioux City and a small
scale-farmer on his acreage in the country. One of the wonderful things about
Phil Hey and his poetry is his enthusiasm. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said
that "nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm" which
is another way of saying love, a love that is contagious. To hear in his first
line, that Mr. Hey wants to name many of the little things in his life that
he loves and that makes a difference is something one has come to expect from
him and treasure. But in this poem, besides finding the extraordinary in the
small and ordinary, he reminds us how sensitive is the glass we are looking
in, how vast but absolutely fragile is the life-sustaining beauty we live by
the grace of and continually take part in. This world and your life in it are
beautiful gifts, fragile as the surface of a pond upon which a spider is walking,
breathe softly and reverently. Don’t disturb the subtle unseen tension
that continues to hold it and your reflection up.
At The River’s Edge
I want to talk about things I love:
how the trees stand next to the edge
so lush and upright, patient in the wind;
the colors of small stones just underwater;
the darting of minnows and the sudden pause
as they hang like a cloud against the current;
the way the water whispers at the shore,
cradling grains of sand always, back and forth;
and the water-strider, easy in his miracle,
walking anywhere, his feet dimpling the surface
so easy for all the rest of us to break.
"At the River’s Edge"
by Phil Hey originally published in Voices on the Prairie published by
Loess Hills Books.
For Voices from the Prairie and Humanities Iowa, this is Michael Carey hoping you continue to hear the music blooming all around you.
Biography
Phil Hey writes and teaches writing at Briar Cliff College in Sioux City, Iowa. An Iowan and Midwesterner by choice, he grew up in Dixon, Illinois and attended Monmouth College, the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin. He is an editor on the staff of The Briar Cliff Review and Celestial lights Press, and has been active on the roster of the Iowa Arts Council and Humanities Iowa.