My name is Ron Rash and I grew up in Boiling Springs, NC. In that time, early and mid 1960%u2019s, that was a part of the county that was very rural %u2013 many farmers. This poem is about a large animal veterinarian making a late night call that easily could have been to a farm outside Boiling Springs.
3 AM and the Stars Were Out
When the phone rings way too late for good news
Just another farmer wanting me to lose half a night%u2019s sleep
Drive some back country washout for miles, fix what he%u2019s botched.
On such nights I%u2019m like an old, drowsy God tired of answering prayers
So let it ring a while, hope they might hang up, but of course they don%u2019t
Don%u2019t because they know the younger vets shuck off these dark expeditions to me
Thinking its my job and not theirs, because I%u2019ve done it so long I%u2019m used to such nights
Because as old as I am, I%u2019ll still do what they refuse to.
And soon I%u2019m driving out of Shelby, heading north, most often toward Boiling Springs
Towards some barn where a calf that%u2019s been bad bred to save stud fees is trying to be born
Or a cow laid out in a barn stall, dying of milk fever, easily cured if a man hadn%u2019t wagered against his own dismal luck
Waited too late
Hoping to save my fee for a salt lick, roll of barbed wire
And it%u2019s not all his fault, poor too long turns the smartest man stupid
Makes his see nothing beyond the short term gain
Which is why I know more likely than not I%u2019ll be arriving too late
What%u2019s to be done best done with rifle or shotgun
So make driving the good part
Turn off my radio
Let the dark close around until I know a kind of loneliness that doesn%u2019t feel sad as I pass the homes of folks I don%u2019t know
May never know
But wonder what they dream, what life they wake to
Thinking such things
Or sometimes just watching for what stays unseen except what stays on country roads after midnight
Copperheads soaking up what heat the blacktop still holds
Foxes and bobcats
One time in the 50%u2019s a panther, yellow eyes bright as truck beams
Black tipped tail swishing before leaping away through the trees back into its extinction
All this thinking and watching keeping my mind off what waits up the road
Worst of all the calves I have to pull one piece at a time
Birthing death
But sometimes it all works out
I turn a calf%u2019s head and then like a safe%u2019s combination the womb unlocks
Calf slides free
Or this night when stubborn lives get back on its feet
Round eyes clear and hungry
My IV stuck in its neck
And I take my time packing up
Ask for a second cup of coffee
So I can linger a while in the barn mouth
Watching stars, awake in their wide pasture.
