In
the Woodcock's Wake
by Robley Wilson
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
Robley Wilson both a poet, short story writer and a novelist, who since 1969
until his recent retirement from the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls,
edited The North American Review the oldest literary magazine in all
of North America and perennially considered one of its finest. His books of
poetry include Kingdoms of the Ordinary, A Pleasure Tree, and
his latest Everything Paid For from which today’s poem "In
the Woodcock’s Wake" is taken. I don’t know if Mr. Wilson is
a hunter or not, this host certainly isn’t. But it has always seemed to
me that the hunters I have known know and love, more than anyone else and even
protect and help to flourish, the very things they are out to kill. Mr. Wilson
takes this irony one step further and actually envies the woodcock for
its lightness and its wings and maybe its deliverance from the things of this
world that weigh us more self-conscious and rational beings down. If you listen
closely I think you’ll also hear a certain implied insight about how we
humans often take aim and attempt to destroy, knowingly or unknowingly, the
very things that may have been sent to save us. The word "wake" of
course has to do with a movement of air created by the bird’s small wings,
but also with a last visitation before a funeral as in an "Irish wake,"
and also in waking up, maybe from the sleep and darkness of physical limitation
to the eternal and divine light of the spiritual realm. The Irish wake has a
lot to do with this idea also. The root word bud in the word "Buddha"
or "Buddhist" also means "to wake.
In the Woodcock’s
Wake
(after Yevgeny Yevtushenko)
You raise your shotgun, sight it:
The woodcock glides out of the moon,
his wings shuttering the light,
his flight path straight at you.
He is calling; the distance closes.
Something’s between you…but what?
What do you imagine attracts him?
What are you thinking as you aim?
You hear the joy in his cry.
Now if he were the one hunting…
Now if you were the one with wings….
You shiver against the gunstock.
Confess: How you ache to fly,
how much you envy the woodcock—
how the moon is a mirror, and you
just gave yourself both barrels.
"In the Woodcock’s Wake"
by Robley Wilson from his book Everything Paid For published by the University
Press of Florida.
For Voices from the Prairie and Humanities Iowa, this is Michael Carey
hoping you continue to hear the music blooming all around you.
Biography
Robley Wilson recently retired a professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where since 1969 edited The North American Review. His first poetry collection, Kingdoms of the Ordinary, won the 1986 Agnes Lynch Starret prize; his second, A Pleasure Tree, the 1990 Society of Midland Authors poetry award. His third book of poetry Everything Paid For was published by the University Press of Florida in 1999. Wilson is also the author of four short story collections and a novel. He is married to fiction writer Susan Hubbard.