Heynen, Jim

United States, (b. 1945)

TORNADO ALERT

  1. That night
  2. against a copper sky there rose
  3. a body, large and dark,
  4. extending land to cloud.
  5.  
  6. On the dusty stack of last
  7. year’s hay I sat and watched it
  8. lumber nearer, wavering, frayed,
  9. and almost letting loose
  10. to stringy clouds,
  11. then tightening towards
  12. human form. Steadily,
  13. it looked at me,
  14. and I knew it was a woman.
  15.  
  16. For all I knew of women
  17. was there, the mystery I dreamed
  18. beneath the flowing skirts of aunts,
  19. the fleshy angles
  20. of teen-age girls –
  21. and now a broad hip
  22. swaying, a lithesome
  23. fluid rhythm
  24. that was always foreign,
  25. always close to my imagining –
  26. a song translated to the sky
  27. and one with it.
  28.  
  29. From all directions
  30. came her silence breathing in
  31. my breath, a feeling heavy
  32. from inside that could have been
  33. a wish to leap into
  34. her grand revolving.
  35. My hesitation broke
  36. her silence into laughter,
  37. shattering the oats.
  38. I felt the urge the fence
  39. posts followed leaping
  40. from their dull lives in earth
  41. to dance the sky,
  42.  
  43. or at least
  44. to let my clothing go
  45. the way the corn
  46. in all its ordered rows
  47. let go its leaves and seed to be
  48. one with swirling cloud.
  49.  
  50. Half-mad with yearning,
  51. half-crazed by fear of this
  52. too-large, too-godly,
  53. all-absorbing woman,
  54. I, boyish and afraid,
  55. burrowed down to root myself
  56. in hay. And then
  57. from near the hog house
  58. a sow ascended,
  59. a wingless flight
  60. into the guttural roar of mud and dust,
  61. its thick form turning
  62. slowly, its snout agape,
  63. its short legs pedalling air –
  64. a crazy celebration, her joining,
  65. as if by choice, the sky
  66. hilarious with debris.
  67.  
  68. First rain,
  69. then the stinging sky,
  70. struck my face.
  71. All her darkness was upon me.
  72. All her rage.
  73.  
  74. The pig was gone.
  75. I heard my own unwilling
  76. scream of terror
  77. and turned face-down, clawing
  78. like a rodent trapped in hail.
  79. With no choice but to live out
  80. instinct of beast, bird, or fish,
  81. I scratched and writhed, prying
  82. the stubborn sea
  83. of hay, my only hope
  84. a burial. Submerging
  85. so deep that sight and sound
  86. were gone,
  87. I lived
  88. the single smell
  89. of molding, musty hay.
  90.  
  91. Whoever it was survived
  92. climbed up through my chest,
  93. and I stood upright
  94. into torrents ‘of friendly rain
  95. on the fire of torn skin.
  96.  
  97. The bristling sow
  98. weaved through my mind.
  99. Somewhere,
  100. I imagined her
  101. still skirmishing with filthy air,
  102. still turning over and over
  103. in a sky of wreckage.
  104. I heard the rescue sirens,
  105.  
  106. frail strands of sound.
  107. I saw the sad, dishevelled farmyard.
  108. I saw the waxen faces of my frightened
  109. parents peering from the cellar.
  110.  
  111. And I laughed,
  112. already denying those reports
  113. of finding, 30 miles east,
  114. stomach sliced by the free-wheeling
  115. ploughshares of the sky,
  116. the haughty, grunting, earthy sow.

© Jim Heynen. How the Sow Became a Goddess. Lewiston, ID: Confluence Press (1977).

DURING THE FIRST 3 MINUTES OF LIFE

  1. The piglet
  2. sucks
  3.  
  4. naps
  5. wakes up
  6.  
  7. sniffs
  8. the nipple next door
  9.  
  10. bites
  11. his brother’s ear
  12.  
  13. naps again
  14. snores
  15.  
  16. wakes up
  17. shivers
  18.  
  19. jumps straight up
  20. twists an ankle
  21.  
  22. squeals
  23. looks around for the sound
  24.  
  25. leaves home
  26. gets lost
  27.  
  28. pees
  29. on the run
  30.  
  31. stops on a window
  32. frame of light
  33.  
  34. looks up
  35. into the sun

© Jim Heynen. How the Sow Became a Goddess. Lewiston, ID: Confluence Press (1977).

SOMETIMES A SOW

  1. Sometimes a sow
  2. couldn’t have her young.
  3. They’d catch
  4. in the tight gate
  5. of her womb
  6. and she’d lie heaving
  7. towards death.
  8.  
  9. When I was ten
  10. I learned a trick
  11. to get them out –
  12. a metal hook
  13. in my hand
  14. into the birth channel
  15. shoulder deep
  16. to find
  17. the small snout.
  18. I’d slip the hook
  19. under the chin,
  20. hold my breath,
  21. and pull.
  22.  
  23. Sometimes
  24. the wish-bone jaw
  25. shattered
  26. and the pig died,
  27. but when it worked
  28. the release was sudden –
  29. a small form
  30. wet in my hands.
  31.  
  32. At the sound of life
  33. the sow would sigh
  34. her jowled sigh
  35. and I would sigh
  36. and put the pig
  37. bleeding
  38. to her teats.

© Jim Heynen. A Suitable Church. Copper Canyon Press (1981).

Hog House Poem

  1. It’s 6 a.m.
  2. Something’s happening in the hog house
  3.  
  4. and I’m just 8 years old,
  5. going out to catch that robber by myself.
  6.  
  7. No robber. It’s just the boar Dad
  8. bought last night
  9. doing something.
  10.  
  11. He looks different now,
  12. his mouth so foamy
  13.  
  14. my mouth waters. And there, close by,
  15. the old sow standing still.
  16.  
  17. She’s different too – her hams lathered
  18. where he lathers her
  19.  
  20. with his mouth. Now he up and mounts her
  21. like a saw-horse on a barrel.
  22.  
  23. Oh, the whole world’s tilting
  24. and there’s a good smell in the air.
  25.  
  26. I’m just going to stand and think
  27. about the fact that I’m still 8
  28.  
  29. and this morning
  30. something’s really happening
  31. in the hog house.

© Jim Heynen. How the Sow Became a Goddess. Lewiston, ID: Confluence Press (1977).

About the Poet:

Jim Heynen, United States, (b. 1945) is a poet and a writer of novels, nonfiction, and short fiction. Born on a farm in Northwest Iowa, Heynen was formerly the Books Editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and now lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Heynen is best known for his short short stories about “the boys,” and his many works include The Boys’ House: New and Selected Stories, Standing Naked: New and Selected Poems (2001) and Ordinary Sins: After Theophrastus (2014).

For many years he was Writer-in-Residence at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He has been awarded National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in both poetry and fiction. [DES-10/19]

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