The US Senate Cabinet Hearings.

The Iowa Quarter's tribute to education, Wood's Frozen Hill
sits on a ridge down across Buffalo Creek
bones collected for fertilizer by pioneers
who built another school nearby where the beasts had fallen through ice
nearby where I fell through the ice, skating too late in spring.
My brother plunging through coming to my rescue,
for looking to the horizon of Young Corn familiar sloughs
lead down to the Buffalo ponds. Grant Wood lives in me.
As does a view of a hole in the ice from below
A brother coming to my aid a story as familiar as every veteran's
tale of jungle or desert comrade fallen; a long dark wall, classmates, later.
For that day was bright, and looking up and seeing a proverbial light in pond water tunnel,
feeling bottom I "jumped" at the chance to end my war
and laying on the edge of my hole on the still thin ice
rejoiced as my brother broke his way to shore.
Both soon home by hearth; my wish for all like me
forever stuck with tunnel vision. Jump.

Phil Specht  31 January 2013