The Iowa Poems 175 Committee is pleased to announce "The Wave, Stead Family Children's Hospital, Iowa City" to lead the 175 poems selected in IOWA POEMS 175: Poetry to Observe Iowa's 175th Birthday in 2021.

All poems were written by U of Iowa graduate John D. Thompson. Below is a copy of "The Wave."  You are welcome to share it among your departments.

Complimentary copies of IOWA POEMS 175 will be delivered to your respective departments later in the year.  Mr. Thompson would like to thank your departments and the fans and folks at the U of Iowa for the inspiration to write the poem.  

--Iowa Poems 175™ Committee,
 

"The Wave, Stead Family Children's Hospital, Iowa City"
-John D. Thompson

I have heard

(perhaps it was in a resonant shell)

that waves are voice-like windows of benign tides

overlapping, courteous—cochlea designs

rolling over sound—

tidings deeper than a bight, larger than a bay,

pushing, appeasing one another to shore,

speaking of brave sailors,

mysterious fins,

bearing grid soul of an ocean

unleashing its iron wall—what is buried within,

upward and reaching like spirited birches

as if the crest were a Rooftop sky

to where lighted eyes return

an echo of hope,

one child’s touch—down—Hello, Hello

simplest gesture

open hands at end of first-quarter fold,

arms to eternity’s bend,

field and faith collide,

mid-air exchange, infallible sirens

surf-and-turf friends

in amicable fling,

what bodies of wonder

forever moved,

fan and wing.