Poet
Farmers
by John Warner
Ruthie saw them
first, shading her eyes with a hand and pointing at
a group kicking up dust along the front drive. Capes
flapped behind as they walked and each one of them
clutched a wire notebook and pen. "Shit damn," Ruthie
said to Roy, "looks like we got poets."
The leader, pale and pointy nosed, scooped
up a handful of dirt and breathed it in deeply before
dumping it inside the folds of his cape. "Show us
your world, there is poetry here," he said, as the
others muttered and surrounded Ruthie, gauging her
thighs.
"Like oak," one said.
"No, granite," from another, and it
looked like there was going to be a dust up until
one got too close and Ruthie slapped a grabbing hand
from the hem of her dress.
Ruthie flashed the back of her hand
at those poets and looked at Roy and said, "Well Roy,
I guess you should show’em what they're after."
The poets’ capes gently swayed, windless
and limp as they stalked the new John Deere. One frowned
as he picked at the hard, enamel paint while others
climbed into the cab and shuddered from the blare
of Hank Jr. on the CD player. Roy showed them the
cool ease of the power steering, the air conditioning
and the fully electronic, adjustable seat. When Roy
cranked the engine, the poets scattered from the pistons’
howl.
"Bunch a hens," Roy spat. He thought
for a moment that he might've gotten rid of those
poets, but as he headed back toward the house, he
heard the murmur of their capes as they regrouped
behind him.
Ruthie sat them around the kitchen for
some of her countywide famous black-raspberry tarts
and naturally sweetened ice tea, but there was nary
a nibble or sip, and it looked for awhile like those
poets were about ready to move on when one of them
spied the weathered planks of the old barn.
"Over there!" he shouted.
And as they ran toward the barn they
bellowed, "Show us the cracked hide of old mule straps
and the blunted blade of the once keen plow! Show
us the toil and the drought, the struggle against
soil! Show us poetry!" Ruthie looked at Roy and Roy
looked at Ruthie and they both shrugged, but they
were glad for their once again empty kitchen, and
so they let the poets pour over those rusty things.
After a couple of months some left,
notebooks bulging, but still more came seeking their
muse. They were, for sure, a nuisance. For awhile
Ruthie and Roy considered their alternatives: a good
herbicide, the National Guard or some local toughs
brought round after one too many, maybe, but nothing
seemed quite right until one night, Ruthie and Roy
had this conversation:
"Roy?"
"Yeah?"
"You remember our dream Roy?"
"Oh yeah."
"The Princess Royal Ultra Luxury Cruise
Line, twelve days and eleven nights, nights that are
preceded by dazzling sunsets and end with us exhausted
from dancing, drinking and good cheer. You remember
that, right Roy?"
"Twenty-four hour a day cabin boys named
Hector or Lars, honey."
"You remember what it said the pool-side
drinks tasted like Roy?"
"I believe it was Nectar. Sun-drenched
nectar, topped with honey, honey."
And at this point Ruthie paused for
a moment as she ran her hand down Roy’s arm and made
every single hair on his whole body stand straight
up. For that moment, Roy marveled at how Ruthie could
do that even after their many years of marriage.
"We’re farmers, aren’t we Roy?"
"Oh yeah, we’re farmers all right."
"And the beans, Roy?"
"Bad year for beans Ruthie."
Ruthie smiled, smiled more seductively
than you might imagine and said, "Well I know something
we got too much of, Roy." And that night Roy surely
did enjoy Ruthie’s iron thighs.
They had acres of poets buried navel
deep. Rows and rows of them always stocked with notebooks
and pens and kept fat on fried chicken, squash, whole
milk, and Mars Bars. Nights, while Ruthie and Roy
dreamed of Caribbean vistas, those poets slept, covered
with their capes.
But the first crop was no good, bad
enjambment, thoughtless stanza breaks and cliches
crept across them like blight, and Roy and Ruthie
were about to give up on those poets as a problem
they could not crack, and with it their life-long
dream of cruising the Caribbean, but then Ruthie and
Roy had another conversation:
"Roy?"
"Yeah, honey?"
"You remember what Wittgenstein used
to say, Roy?"
"Seems to me he said a lot of things."
"What I’m thinking of is this particular
thing, and you stop me if I’m wrong, Roy: ‘The riddle
does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then
it can also be answered.’"
"You’re not wrong, honey. Now why don’t
you stop fiddling with that poetry nonsense and come
over here so we can share our love."
And that night, Ruthie did as she was
asked, gladly.
So they switched the poets to a diet
of citrus fruits, bean sprouts, the occasional organ
meat or lean veal cutlet with a dry, white sherry
for a nightcap, and soon enough the yield started
getting better.
Roy gathered the sheets of paper from
the fields and rubbed Ruthie's shoulders as she typed
them up, polished the metaphors and fixed some other
rough spots:
"You remember what else Wittgenstein
said, Roy?"
"Are you thinking of, ‘Everything that
can be said, can be said clearly,’ honey?"
"I am Roy."
"I clearly love you, my sweet sweet
Ruthie Ann," Roy said.
And soon enough they had a bumper crop
and a real New York agent named Silverberg and the
critics almost tripped over their tongues they were
so fat with praise. Just last week Silverberg gave
Ruthie and Roy the word that they’d won an honest
to goodness Pulitzer Prize. A Pulitzer prize! A Pulitzer
prize, which even Roy and Ruthie know is a pretty
big deal. So Ruthie went off cape shopping to prepare
for a full twelve days and eleven nights of leaving
all cares behind, while Roy, Roy is checking with
Ted from next door to see if he'll take a few stray
sonnets as pay to look after the fields while he and
Ruthie cruise.
And Ted, while Ted believes quite firmly
in being neighborly, he’s still thinking that he’ll
have to hold out for a suite of sestinas, perhaps
about the rain and how it sounds when it strikes the
roofs of farmhouses, old tin barns, or waving blades
of field grass.
