Poetry – Dan Routh Photography

Where I’m From

My son Devin is an IT professional in Zurich, Switzerland. Once upon a time he wrote poetry.

Where I’m From
Devin Routh

I’m from rolling pastures
Veined by dry creek beds.
Where centenarian white oaks,
Younger than great-grandma Lucy
And her calamine feet,
Shade the black angus mixed with
The santa gertrudis as they
Chew their cud.
I’m from kitchens
Where green beans
And ice cream
Make music when we
Cook them,
Gardens and orchards where we
Grow corn and tomatoes,
Watermelons and apples,
And enjoy the occasional persimmon pudding.
Ambrosia isn’t coconut and pineapple,
It’s two cups of sugar,
Two cups of milk,
Two cups of flour,
Four eggs, cinnamon, vanilla,
And two cups of persimmon pulp.

I’m stuck between Erect
And Climax,
On the way to High Point
But I never go there.
I go down yonder
And ask ‘chup to?

I buy hay from Jack Fagg,
Honey from Janice Horny,
Meet John Brown at 3 a.m.
To discuss politics and watch
His drunk father drink more.

I see my cousins
When I drive 22 to town,
“Routh Oil Company,”
“Alvin’s Automotive.”
Eric, adopted Cherokee,
Still my blood kin, gives me 5th Avenues
To say goodbye.

In the barnyard,
I smell the diesel
Granddaddy Routh used to scrub
The grease from under our fingernails.
At the dinner table,
I taste fire in the peppers
Grandpa Cranford collected in his shirt pocket.

I’m from coldwater springs
Where we lose boots and calves
To the mud, like quicksand but only knee deep.
I’m from flower gardens
Where opossums slumber,
Where they wake under the moon
To eat the leftover cat food.

On my farm,
We build cairns as monuments
For the dogs and cats,
Feed corn to the deer and save them
From the hunters.
Sanctuary. “Jesus is Lord
Over Gray’s Chapel,”
But my grandpas taught me
How to fish, how to sow,
To kiss the catfish
And throw them back
(Their lips look just like a person’s),
Taught me how to look for pine hearts
And cut wood already fallen,
How to give life
And only borrow it.

The Egret, a Poem by Devin Routh

Animals, Farm, Poetry

The Egret

With stilt-like legs he wanders through the water’s edge
content to watch the fish below him, not to hunt
but listen to the bullfrogs’ croaking in the sedge
first loud then low, for he himself is transient.
He comes and goes with all the seasons and the winds
from sandy creeks where crawdads make their rocky homes
to miry ponds where ivory feathers hardly blend;
despite the mud he stays unsoiled while he roams.
And if a feather falls it’s full of blemishes
in little time; it loses all its pristine shine
as if it never shone before and proves that his
persistent sojourning has kept him in his prime.
To see an egret flap his wings and fly away
is to discover why he never cares to stay.

The Deer Skull

Animals, Poetry

deer skull

The deer skull

We hear them snorting in the woods
at night amidst the pine tree groves.
From time to time we see them graze
on fescue hay that’s meant for cows
but grows in fields that they call home.
They come and go in herds or pairs
or single bucks in search of does.
And usually we have a few
who stay with us from year to year.

One night when we were coming home
we saw a buck across the road
that stood as if he were a king
surveying all his open land.
We shined our lights and watched him match
our gaze with both his glowing eyes.
He had at least a dozen points
or more above his massive neck;
his veins and muscles stretched and bulged
to show that he was in the rut.
Behind him there were does and fawns
and younger bucks with lesser racks
that darted when we shined the light.

But he with amber-fearless eyes,
not lost within a mindless trance,
held strongly to his daunting pose
until we took our lights and left.

We’ve always let the deer roam free
without the threat hunters’ guns.
But poachers sometimes stop at night
along the road to spotlight deer
then aim to shoot towards our barn,
or even towards our house and cows,
because they’re drunk or simply bored.
And when they do, we spotlight them
with two or three bright beams of light
until they grab their guns and run
as if they are the hunted ones.
They get their kicks and power trips
from killing peaceful animals,
but none of them have ever stood
as steadfast as that burly buck.

Turtle Fishing

Family, Farm, Poetry

Turtle Fishing

Under stagnant algae blooms
where slimy catfish feast on muck,
a spiny snapping turtle looms
before it bites a baited hook.

He sinks the point into his beak
then feels a tugging from the line
towards which he cannot help but creep
and follow with his ancient mind.

It leads him right up to the edge
of where the water meets the air;
A skillful hand then starts to dredge
his shell out from his muddy lair.

The turtle now alone on land
begins to hiss and snap with ire.
My grandpa then wipes off his hand
to cock the .410 bore and fire.

I watch him then remove the hook
to add a piece of beef as bait.
It was the second time he took
a turtle from the pond that day.

“I’m only gonna take a few,”
he said before he cut the beef.
“We’ll only get the old ones who
are eating all the baby geese.”

The buzzards would have only five
big shells to pick away for meat.
The goslings then could learn to fly
with baby turtles at their feet.

There was a time I wondered why
we could not let the turtles thrive.
But looking back I realize
that death helps new things come alive.

Fixing Fence

Family, Farm, Poetry

Fixing Fence

With wire stretchers, fencing tools,
a spool of wire, galvanized
new staples and ten-penny nails
we’d pack the Gator with the tools
to fix whatever fence was down.
An aged elm with rotting limbs
might fall just near a pasture’s edge,
or herds of deer might jump the fence
and nick the top lines with their hooves.
Before we’d start, we’d clear the brush
and briars from the cedar posts
that stood before my Grandpa Routh
was even born; they’ll never rot.
I’d dread the prick of those damn plants
because they always stuck me more
than any of the metal barbs
adorning all the fence our cows
could lean against without a care.
My brother Tristan, Dad, and I
would all wear gloves to keep our hands
from being tattered while we worked.
But Grandpa Routh would skip the gloves,
his hands were like a white oak’s bark.
His arms, however, weren’t the same;
they’d tear and drip with viscous blood,
but never once in all those days
do I recall him grimacing.
When I was young, I wondered how
it felt to feel what pain was like
if I were him with all his years.
I’d know the pain of sawing off
my finger, feel the stitches used
to sew it back so I could bend
it better than the other ones
arthritis would consume with age.
I’d know a thousand hammer blows
intended for a nail or tack
that hit my fingernails instead.
To live and farm like he once did,
to stretch a wire taut and straight
or clear a tangled briar patch,
to use the tools as he was taught
when he spent time with his grandpa,
would be to know the pain involved
and know what makes it worth it all.

For Wolf, 1993-2010

Family, Poetry

For Wolf

Looking through his eyes was like
Staring into wilderness
Something agelessly unknown
Yet alluring to the soul.
Born with irises like snow
Swirled with arctic glaciers
He was mixed with malamute,
Husky, and a quarter Wolf.
Far from frigid northern lands
Shady pine groves proved to be
Perfect hunting grounds where he,
Faster than I, could catch me.
Evening brought him to the door
At our den. He’d lick the glass,
Beg and yelp at us until,
Laughing and smiling, we’d
Open up to give him treats.
Time would turn his icy eyes
Ocher like a darkened clay.
Though he couldn’t run with me
He’d nip at me and still he’d play.

Wednesday Poetry

Poetry

Today I want to share some of my son Devin’s poetry. He wrote this about Chram, a Montagnard who works at a neighbor’s organic farm in Grays Chapel, North Carolina.

He proudly holds his hand-picked greens
Above the plants he sowed himself.
With eyes like stones he sees beyond
This fertile ground, these Southern Hills
Towards another wooded home.
So far from Vietnam, so far
From where he left his family
To find new work and guarantee
A steady life or something more
Than what they’d have as refugees.

While all his plants took seed and grew
To feed his new community
His arms grew thin, his legs looked frail,
He stumbled as he picked the weeds,
And finally he asked if he
Could hunt a couple squirrels for food.
He nearly starved to save his crops
For those who bought them from the farm.
So Steve and Lee, who hired him,
Packed up fresh cheese and meat, as well
As plenty of his vegetables,
And sent him home to rest and eat.

Was it his pride that kept him from
Enjoying his all his hard grown crops,
Or was it dignity and grace?
Or maybe it was something else,
That every crop he didn’t eat
He sold instead, a dollar more
Towards his wage, and closer still
To moving all his family
From far off camps to Southern hills.
He’d rather starve for weeks than spend
A day without his family.

Belated Mother’s Day

Family, Poetry

My son Devin is in school at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and he wasn’t able to get home for Mother’s Day. He’s a poet, so he was able to send a few belated verses to his Mom in the form of a limerick.

“So I have this very swell mama
who kept me from childhood trauma
and though she can nag
like a withered old hag
without her I’d drown in life’s drama.”

He made his Mom laugh.

Rienzi (1981-2010)

Family, Farm, Horses, Poetry

One of the things about living on a farm is that you are surrounded by the cycle of life, the annual growth of crops and with livestock the progression from birth to death. Sometimes it’s harder to experience than other times. About 2 weeks ago our beloved horse Rienzi left us. We have had the privilege of having her with us for 28 years. She was a “mustang”, a wild horse from the Skedaddle Mountains near Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada. We adopted her when she was a yearling and she has shared our life and gained our respect for all those many years. The end of the cycle has been hard for us and we will miss her. My son Devin writes about her best.

The ivory streak along her face
reminds me of a comet’s tail,
and every morning she would race
much like a comet through the fields.

She came from empty desert hills,
a Mustang from Nevada.
Her kind was always being killed
for glue and wasted fodder.

So in our pastures she found home
alongside our small herd of cows.
She’d follow them where’er they roamed;
We’d laugh and watch her as we plowed.

At nights she’d come to her corral
and rest there ’til the break of day.
She’d nip at us, pretend to scowl
if we replaced sweet feed with hay.

And now she rests beneath two trees
that grow between our pond and barn.
Above her, cows chew cud at ease;
She’s with her herd and on our farm.

Feline Repose

Cat, Mill, Poetry

Strutting down his wooden catwalk,
Whiskers poised, he purrs and stalks
Mice below the mill worn bedrocks,
But first he stops to strike a pose.

Yes, he knows that we can see him.
We are guests within his kingdom.
Nothing stays unless he lets them
(He even chases off the crows).

After noon he’ll find a shadow
Chase it as he fights a battle
Under brush, through herds of cattle,
Until he stops to then repose.