Oil

Oil

By Robin Lee Shelby

A rugged job for rugged men

With skins bronzed by the sun

Whose task it is to drill for oil

In many a rugged terrain

From burning desert to muddy swamp

They work both night and day

Danger they face quite willingly

As part of the job they perform

By chopper and boat they come

To man the rigs offshore

Drillers, roustabouts and toolpushers

Derrickhands and motorhands too

They work the Kelly and the mud pumps

And add the pipe the deeper the hole

The rotary table squeals each turn

Moving the drill bit deeper in the earth

Then comes the rumbling

Black Gold rushes forth

Into the pipeline it flows

Another job has been done

Hurricane

Hurricane

By Robin Lee Shelby

Stay tuned

Updates coming

Two flags waving

Hurricane warning

Silence

The calm

Deafening quiet

Before the onslaught

Breezes

Drizzles of rain

Slick roadways

Time to put up the shutters

Wind gusts

Dancing limbs

Slanting rain

The storm is near

Rain in sheets

Howling winds

Flying things

The storm is here

Unexpected calm

Quietness

Fresh smell

The eye

Renewed onslaught

Driving rain

Sound of drums

The storm returns

Water dripping

Ditches full

Grass glistening

The Storm has passed

Sunset on the Bayou

Sunset on the Bayou

By Robin Lee Shelby

When days work is done

And to home we return

We sit awhile on the wharf

By the bayou

A pole in one hand

A beer in the other

To relax by the side

Of the bayou

A sudden breeze

Stirs the water

That laps the bank

Of the bayou

As twilight comes

The crickets chirp

And bullfrogs croak

Near the bayou

On the western horizon

The golden orb of the sun

Seems to touch the edge

Of the bayou

All too soon it disappears

Leaving a soft glow

As the sun sets

On the bayou. 

The Bald Cypress

 The Bald Cypress

By Robin Lee Shelby

Among the swamps of south Louisiana

Once stood virgin bald cypress trees

Sentinels of the swamp

Thousands of years old

Near two hundred feet high

Close to ten feet wide

Wood grown in wet climes

Building material for the time

Home to the frogs, salamanders and ducks

Catfish spawn in submerged hollow logs

Upon their limbs Spanish Moss grows

And eagles nest in the tree tops

French settlers to this land

Used this growth

For dugout pirogues, their homes and furniture

Later they were turned into railroad ties

For the railroads then came

With lumbermen

Establishing company towns

To harvest this resource

Then the day came

When the trees were all hewn

The towns became villages

With abandoned ruins

Young cypress trees remained

And grow to this day

I could take you there

This is where I was raised

The Old Spanish Auto Trail

The Old Spanish Auto Trail

Old Spanish Trail Road Map - Southern Louisiana - 1924

      I grew up in an old house on the Old Spanish Auto Trail.  It was located between the town of Houma and the small village of Gibson, Louisiana along the old federal Highway 90 that ran parallel to Bayou Black; a path that ran along a ridge just 5 feet above sea level.  Behind the house were 16 acres of farmland usually planted in sugarcane.  Beyond that was a forest of trees that was plentiful with wild game.  And, of course, the swamp lay just beyond that, followed by the Intra-Coastal Canal.  We used to joke that we were close enough to the Gulf of Mexico to spit in it.

      The little school we attended had been built during an era that had seen the harvesting of cypress trees from the surrounding swampland.  When that petered out the population decreased but the eight room school was still there teaching first grade all the way to ninth grade.  Later it would only be eight when the new parish junior high had been built in 1955. 

      In those days much of the Old Spanish Trail that existed in 1905 was still intact but there were places where it had been obliterated by the normal march of progress.  A progress that has continued unabated to this very day, leaving huge gaps in the continuity of the original path.   A number of those gaps were where ferries were once used to cross rivers;  the original ferry crossing the Mississippi from New Orleans to Algiers and the ferry crossing from Morgan City to Berwick across the Atchafalaya being two of them. 

     Other sections of road were replaced with new roadways, like the ones from Raceland to Des Allemand and from Gibson to Amelia.  And, then, there was the complete relocation of Highway 90 from Lafayette to Paradis that completely bypassed or were elevated over towns and other communities along its path.  Much of that route still exists, however, along the current State Highway 182.  

Current Louisiana Road Map

 

The Bayou

The Bayou

By Robin Lee Shelby

It wends its way along

Like a meandering snake

Through high land and low

Along ridges and roadways

Home to the fish, the frog and the turtle

And in the lowlands the alligator

Along its banks grow much vegetation

Giant Cutgrass, the Palmetto and the Bald Cypress

With the phases of the moon

It flows one way

And then the other

In its slow meandering way

At times the water is clear

And others choked with hyacinth

Coontails edge the waterside

Along with giant lily pads

These waterways cut through the land

Creating a thousand islands

A sportsman’s paradise

Where fish and game abound

The Bridge

The Bridge

By Robin Lee Shelby

Its deck timbers are dried

The undercarriage gone

All wooden fenders are rotting away

And traffic now is banned

But I remember how it was

In an earlier time

When things seemed so much simpler

And she was in her prime

The boat horn would blow

And men would scramble out

To manually turn the bridge

Along the curving walk

The boat would then go down the bayou

To its port of call

And the bridge would be turned

To where it had been

I walked many times across that bridge

When I was very young

For I had to cross it

To get to grammar school

I’ve crossed many other bridges

In my long lifetime

But that one will always be

The one that stays in my mind

Requiem for a Paradise Lost

Requiem for a Paradise Lost

by   Robin Lee Shelby

Gone in time are the places of my youth

Worn away by the ravages of time
Trees have been felled
Old buildings torn down

New homes have been built
Roads laid to connect them
Industry where once lay fallow fields
Swamps shrunken for RV parks

No more trappers in pirogues
Muskrat have no habitat
The bayou clogged with trash
Trees grown wild around abandoned homes

Pirogues are far and few between
Trapper’s shacks rotting away
Old cypress trees long since cut down
Swamps reclaiming their own

I traveled there just yesterday
And that is what I saw
But I shall try to forget it all
And remember it as it was

A paradise to fish and hunt
Neighbors far apart
Mile upon mile of sugar cane fields
Bayous and swamps clean and pure

The Pirogue

The Pirogue

By Robin Lee Shelby

Cajun conveyance
Workhorse of the swamp
Weathered Cypress
Carrier of supplies

Platform for trappers and fishermen

Tied settlements together

Predated the railroads
Before oil was found

Railroads came
Then the roads and bridges
Lumber company towns
Virgin Cypress harvested

New channels dug

Pirogues brought men
To cut down the trees
Young growth untouched

Muskrats trapped
Fur for ladies coats
Moss pickers with long poles
The pirogue was there

Progress came

Numbers diminished
Some still ply
Heritage lives on.