The Farm

Fry Farm, the central setting for ‘These Remembered Hills,’ is based on a very real location where I spent some of my childhood. Although I have changed some place names and slightly tilted the directions, one could probably locate it from the description given in the novel.

And yes, there were caves—the very real Salt Petre Caves that are now operated by a nonprofit organization. Back then, it was my grandfather’s farm and my own father did some of his growing up there, roaming the hills, hunting, spending time in the caves. It was not much of an operating farm even then, but a country place for my grandfather, who had made his fortune in Columbus, in construction and lumber.

I’m including a photo of one of the caves as they are now. I may dig out some old photos later and scan them to post here. My descriptions of the caves and of the farm do come pretty close to the real place but I’ve allowed myself some artistic license here and there. Sometimes when I just didn’t remember details and only had maps to go by!

 The areas around the farm are very much ‘real.’ Logan, Athens, the various state parks (though I did rename the one closest to the farm). Columbus, too, which we visit in the course of the story. More on some of those places later.

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note: This is a re-post from my Hocking Hills blog. I intend to move all the material from it here and close it down. 

In the Rain

A poem of mankind's youth

 In the Rain

In the rain she heard her mother’s voice
and for a moment believed she lived again.
Did not the moon return, return to the night,
return in her own self? Had not the seasons
come in their turn, the cold, the fruitful
times of birth and growth? All things, she thought,
all things. The nursing baby, the blood of the hunt
and of the woman. Could it all be one?
Speak, again, my mother, she murmured,
falling into sleep. Speak in the rain.

Stephen Brooke ©2025

Sins, a poem

 Sins

The sins of my father are not my sins
but sins none the less. I
Forget them only to repeat them,
hide them from my children to see them
sin in turn. What  apathy 
can save me? What blind eye can I turn?

The hubris of tyrants makes each fall
in turn, but first we raise them up.
On the shields of the army,
we raise them, on the shoulders of
the workers. Yes, and on the backs
and hungry blood of each of us.

I can not lose myself here, drown
tomorrow in hypnotic seas;
each wave returns me to my shores,
insistent sand, a border to all
that seems real. Perhaps it is.
Perhaps our sins lie over there.

Stephen Brooke ©2025

Haze, a poem

Haze

The soldiers of that summer
did not sing. They had
the radio. They had Hendrix
sending them into
their haze, the haze of a war
that none saw beyond. We watched
them go. We named them to
forget them. Which ones did not
come back? Those, too, had names.
Do you remember them?

Stephen Brooke ©2025

Beach, a poem

Beach

Ninth Avenue, maybe, or Eighth — 
that doesn’t much matter. The Gulf
lies at the palm-shadowed end,
the hours giving way,
the day giving way,
the beach becoming the world
and the world, the beach.
Blinded, we laugh, walking
the startled sand, one compass
as good as another, salt
to left or right and, then,
the other way around.
Shall we swim? Later.

Stephen Brooke ©2025

Dot-Com

I'm not sure if there was any point to it but I renewed the eggshellboats.com domain for another three years. It has pointed only to this blog for some time and I may never use it for anything else (though the name was originally conceived as the title of a magazine). Three years won't cost that much and who knows whether I'll still be around then? 

Understand, a poem

Understand

To understand the novel
one should read, as well,
his poems. The words are there,
those very same words, leaping

over each other on their
varied ways. Some come
when called. Some will run
from the extended hand, knowing

not what we conceal.
Look, it is empty.
Look, I innocent come
to roll these pebbles between

blind fingers, to know what canticles
formed the day. A poet?
I know only the novels,
reciting in the dusk.

Stephen Brooke ©2025

I had a specific writer in mind when I composed this, but that doesn't matter.