Pure Shooter
by Ron Ikan

This is Michael Carey for Voices from the Prairie a weekly sampling from the rich soil of Iowa¹s literary tradition. Today¹s poet, Ron Ikan, writes about the Midwestern farm boy and his magnetic attraction to the basketball hoop. Coming from the East Coast and a wrestling tradition this love, almost obsession, is something I came to experience first hand as my son is now that farm boy with his hoop shooting his hopes and dreams up to the sky over and over. Years ago when he wrote it, Ron even sent his poem to the Iowa Hawkeyes and the coach honored the whole team with it. It takes a special coach to know that poetry in the heart is the way to win a ballgame.

Pure Shooter

His sleeves have been rolled
since the tender age of six
when a first miniature backboard
got tacked up above the door
there in his rural bedroom
for him to shoot at repeatedly
any time of the day or night,
and since then the feeling has
spread throughout his system
as these lifelong addictions will,
fixing from the third grade on
this time-honored tradition
of the true Midwestern farm boy
dangerous from the top of the key
whose folks breed Poland China
and vote straight Republican,
saddled when he was twelve
with the costly installation
of a utility pole built special
near the basket out behind the barn
giving him all the needed light
to shoot them in on those
late November evenings across
entire seasons of chill weather,
with an electric fence humming
and his basketball fairly echoing
on the smooth expansive concrete
he and a proud father poured
one long Labor Day weekend,
turning the ball over and over
in his hands a thousand times daily
there in the darkness long after supper
when all the other kids for miles
have gathered in the basement
of the old Methodist parsonage,
shooting it up even now
into orbit after soft orbit
pure as the driven snow.

"Pure Shooter" by Ron Ikan appeared in Voices on the Landscape 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

Born in Indiana, raised in Illinois living in Iowa since 1965, Ron Ikan seems to be slowly moving west. It was in Iowa where he first met his wife and where his only son was born. For thirty years his poems have been written between the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. Whenever possible he wanders the five state area west of the Big Muddy where Crazy Horse lived, centering on the heart of the Great Plains at Bear Butte. Each time up the sacred mountain his offering for the Great Spirit is a new poem.

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