Things to do in Iowa when you’re alive

If you were in Iowa City right now, you could be attending Steve Kuusisto’s class where Steve’s showing The Practice of the Wild, a documentary about the poet Gary Snyder built around a conversation between Snyder and poet and novelist Jim Harrison.

One of my favorite poems by Snyder, Hay for the Horses:

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."

Comments

[achangeinthewind]

You're not the only one who favors this poem. I saw Snyder read a few years back from his excellent "No Nature" collection, and he began with this poem, which he said was the poem of his most likely to be found in textbooks, and remains a personal favorite of his, too.

[Lance Mannion]

Kit, that's good to know. I had one shot at hearing Snyder read back in grad school, and I blew it.