Ten months before the lease was up
they brought in the drilling rig.
The driller's shack took the bean field.
Joe tried to put in some lettuce around the edges
but those big tires don't know
lettuce from Bermuda.
There was not enough Bermuda left to graze the cow,
so Joe's kids learned to get milk in bottles.
The hole killed one of the roots on Joe's pear tree
It didn't die, but there were no pears that year.
The noise from the rig disturbed the chickens
and they quit laying.
One morning we found the beehive empty,
and we all helped put up the honey in jars,
not knowing when there would be more.
The pond down below the well got salty and all of Joe's catfish died at once.
We were afraid to eat the fish, but Joe said we could use them to
fertilize the corn
The corn came that year
in small ears
with tiny hard kernels
that did not gush juice
across the table
when bitten.
Only the melons
seemed to ignore the drilling,
but when the fruit came
it tasted salty, like chemicals.
The blackberry bushes along the fence line
were coated with dirt,
and the berries had to be washed with care
but we got a few pies
The man from the oil company came to see Joe in the last month of the lease and said the rig would have to leave soon.
Joe, a six foot Muscogee who called himself 'Red Stick Creek,' started to cry.
Not understanding, the oil man offered to stay and bring in the well if Joe would extend the lease on terms a bit more favorable to the company. He said the core samples looked 'very promising.'
Joe declined.
I heard the oil man tell another as they walked away that Joe had missed a chance 'better than nothing.'
'These Indians,' he said,'just do not understand how to use land.'
Next year, the pear crop was small, but it came early.