johnclarestokes
Walking low we
grow accustomed
To the cadence
Of the downcast
Seeing not
The Aufzug
The pulling up
For but a moment
Revealing the stairway
Made upon the clouds
Then the curtain lowers
And we walk on
Low below the
Stairway made.
I’ve gazed through a Pentax
I’ve wondered with a Canon
I’ve been inspired by a Nikon
Each showing what I have seen
From every scene.
Johnclarestokes
The night before we’d gather in the front room
Load our butternut vests with the green 4-10 shells
Lay out the thermal long johns by the down filled coat and rub down the single shot Stevens for soon
The frozen dark of dawn would shake us
With the smell of bacon and pancakes wafting
Down the cold dog trot to one soundly sleeping
In dream of bushy tails above making a fuss
The way up the Shadeville road to Ferrell’s seemed
To take too long but soon we arrived ready
A son with his father and a proud grand daddy
To begin our morning for squirrel and rabbit hunting
We’d stop and listen for a spell to tell
Which tree the commotion was taking place
Careful not to crunch twigs in our slow chase
In hopes of finding where the barking did dwell
Beneath the large oak grand daddy pointed
To let the grandson take the first shot
As the fathers son watched and never forgot
The day he was given the honor too
The green shell smoking with a sweet aroma
Leaves falling and a grey thud upon the ground
The son beamed as no prouder three were found
Oh how he couldn’t wait to tell mamma.
Johnclarestokes
Sonny never dreamed when but a boy
He would end up in room One seven teen
Dowling House isn't such a bad place
The bus comes regularly to wait
for him to slowly load his walker
and take the back seat by the talker
who goes on about things gone
How she wishes she was home
Sonny would talk to her of things
he too is missing
But she's too lost in her past to listen
Of sunny days
When Sonny Bays
Was alone and happy.
Do not lose that capacity
To cart wheel beneath
A gleefully full moon
Though we may lay lame
Never let that tame
The inner joy
Of a little boy!
Of all the leaves in the lot, only one chose to depart, so while the others are cold and wet, this one rides shotgun warm and content.
All our days
Shore breaks
Spewing us out
Broken and bruised
Sand encrusted
We rise at last
These waves
Now soothing
Living waters
Were letting in the colder light.
A season-ending wind there blew
That, as it did the forest strew,
I leaned on with a singing trust
And let it drive me deathward too.
Robert Frost
The wind and the rain
My gold crowned lady of crimson beauty
I defend thee from the visage of me
For who best to know the enemy within
Than he who knows where treachery begins?
My crimson crowned warrior of renown
Who defends this the honor of my golden crown
Do you not know within that for which you fall
Is but a heart of common straw?
Marion and I were having a grand time at the lake waiting for the plane doing touch and go’s, to intersect the moon. As he came through the edge, Marion and I both got it and were elated(stoked). A minute later I heard Marion groan, he had just accidentally deleted all 500 images off his card.
Been awhile since I’ve seen Marion.
Wendell Berry
Even in a country you know by heart
it’s hard to go the same way twice.
The life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way.
Any tree or stone or bird
can be the bud of a new direction. The
natural correction is to make intent
of accident. To get back before dark
is the art of going.
Tooley Farm
Madison
John Clare Stokes
Chief once said make it look
less like a ghost town;
But Chief, you were not
Around
When down that grand
Noble came the ghosts
I knew upon that Avenue.
Rossi Davis said it was
Paved with cotton
And that I've never forgotten
When in the fall of '68
Down that hill paraded
Jackie and the boys
Who almost took state
As we lined that route
And let out a shout!
There will come the day
When ole Orange Hill is filled
The last to make his way
Up the Noble Avenue
To join the ghostly
Loved ones who climbed
The empty Noble to view
Not the Sandhills toward
Bronson
Not the steeds of Marion
The Cranes of Alachua
Nor peanut fields of Fugate
But a
Better city set upon
The top of a hill.
Eternal.
You'll shoot the stars out
Would when high in the woods
Looking down from the stand
In hopes of deer or bear to fall
A grand light would descend
And as the deer and bear passed
You'd look up to hear a voice
And you wouldn't think twice
But immediately take up photography
You didn't see that coming
And you'd just shoot the stars out.
Sorry
Resume your hunting...
Johnclarestokes
Quietly as the breathing tide drew from shore
Til but a faint trickle then a still pool
Into the distance mists another drew
The muted life with the mists in a swirl
Cold grew the once warm life on earth
Warmer grew the rising glow beyond
Til into eternal arms time was flung
To envelope the years of tearful mirth
Into the mists we vainly peered
Where goes our love held so dear?
How travels this spirit into the drear?
What mists can dry such tears?
Then in a gentle lifting of the mist
The mystery of the word in flesh
By faith grace the spirit does caress
In joy our downtrodden spirits lift.
We fear not the gathering gloom
It’s given that our years dwell in dim
Preparing us for the eternal realm
Our darkness into the light consume.
Johnclarestokes
There is this river of which the man dreams
That someday he will paddle in the entirety
Knowing every bend of her native beauty
Just two in the canoe of long journey
The Old Town is outfitted and trimmed
Bending branch wood paddles for the two
Lean to tent and supplies generously secured
Nothing spared for the journey of the two
But this river of which he dreams doesn’t exist
The canoe but a dry stored upside down hull
Paddles dry rot from many years out of water
But constant in his dream the thought persists.
It’s what every old waterman longs for
That journey with the elusive love he lost
To return to the rivers source at any cost
There to dwell upon her shore for ever more.
I do not cast for the usual fare when there
I’m quite the opposite Isaac Walton
When it comes to the art of ichthyology talking
I cannot distinguish crappie from brim
No, my creel consists of varying contemplations
Dreams on lines sinking into murky deep
Hopes tangled in the branches determined to keep
Joy bobbing in the sparkling undulations
And more times than not I reach my limit
The frustrated fishers feign pity my way
Some think me insane with no catch of the day
Oh, if only they could taste baked contemplation.
From there I was admitted til I went to Shands Rehab.
Johnclarestokes
For they have been ordered
These be your bounds
And we are with one order found
Eat not of this one tree
And we can’t obey
Oh to be as the mighty ocean.
Who would have thought 2024 would be the end of life as i knew it? Was the stroke bought on by not taking my statin pills, thinking they bought on early dementia? So what is worse, forgetting or having to teach myself to walk, to use my right hand?
By all count, it could have been massive and left me a hardship on family to maintain me. Now, it’s just annoying, but doable.
It saddens me to have to stop work driving. Seeing friends daily.
By John Clare Stokes
Few there are and far between the Fodder Wings
Those with whom heaven and nature sings
As Blake conversing with Ezekiel beneath the tree
Or communing with the critters as did Assisi.
Who hear Sandhills and long to fly
Stuffing sleeves with hay from barn lofts touching sky
Misunderstood seers scolded yet loved for the leap
Limping alongside Yearlings in the piney woods deep
The eyes of perception clear as the Juniper Run
Everything temporal appearing in the Infinite One
Little John's upon Patmos Hammocks caught in the spirit
As beside in shade the signifying Angel sits
Naming the creatures passing through the earthly paradise
From ole Slewfoot to the spotted Flag, knowing all
Heaven and nature as One in a Fodder Wings life
As from hay lofts high soar the strands of straw.
Painting by NC Wyeth
The Burial of Fodder Wing
From the book by Marjorie Rawlings
The Yearling
Of avoiding things insane
In your unquoted desperate
Existence
Void of the joy of it all
Or do you see Chagall’s upon
The elevator walls?
Their own waking
john clare
Mornings she would lie still slow waking
Somewhere between the opening and the closing
Back to some holler below Crumpler Mountain
Lying quietly upon a sofa bed of her own making.
No home of her own long since sold
Passed around from generation to generation
Somewhere between the opening and the closing
Lying quietly upon a sofa bed of her own making.
Back to some holler below Crumpler Mountain
Father calling her to board the Northfork line
Somewhere between the opening and the closing.
To Bluefield past Pinnacle Rock one last time.
Mornings she would lie still slow waking
The generations would tip toe whispering
Lying quietly upon a sofa bed of her own making.
Dreaming kitty at her feet deep in purring.
Back to some holler below Crumpler Mountain
To the tipple whistle sending men below
Deep to the veins of coal forever below
Crying quietly upon beds of their own waking
Somewhere between the opening and the closing.
Justin and I will make sure Stacy is prayed for and taken care of from here on.
Not knowing Brandon’s brother Jason, I thought it was Justin who died in the accident. I should have known better for things just didn’t add up. Then I saw this photo and at first said, how did they do that? Somewhat relieved.
We must return to this bend
The place of quiet where the
heart can mend
Drink in with deer and bear
The nocturnal stare
Just beyond reach of fires glow
Glide the Chipewan slow
Past moccasin on
Tupelo tentacle
medusa sirens resembling
Drawing us where sand scrapes
Of leviathan warn, watching coldly
assuming us worth rolling
In the tannic black mare
Yes, we must go there.
hear her singing in the teared up voice
I wait for the fading of the song
But days it comes back just as strong
How long does it take?
Before the sound of her goes away?
I suppose we carry the song til it’s
Silenced by the grave.
John Clare Stokes
Many are the songs that I have known
From hymns of grace to Comfortably numb
Many are the loves once so madly strong
But none came quite as close when come
in the December clear cold cobalt heaven
the sound to which I’ve long been drawn
of a will from this earth to be ascending
To join the grand Sandhill song.
I dreamed that you came walking by
I exclaimed my, you look so good
You smiled, in that way I still know
You so very young
Me now so old and worn.
When I come upon a lone Golden mill in the four ten turn position, a winter garden of mustard and turnip greens, an old sugar shack, the sitting and gathering bucket, I slow. Once I knew well these things.
People often ask, “wow! What kind of pen did you use to write that poetry?” NOT.
If only I had a pen like yours, I’d be a poet too
by john clare
As hollow shells in our biers of aging
In paper shrouds we shall forever dwell
Images of a life before we fell
In one dimension flat between the pages
Some to King James volumes worn
In the bosom of the love of First John
Some to ye old Burns pages torn
There, him at Agincourt wha shone
A hundred years to quietly lie
The words in the image one becoming
Far hence the sound of tattered chapters turning
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye;
Aye in the image clearly writ
Far faded in the long idle sit
His love perfected in Him alone
Long beyond ye ole image is gone.
Isn't that the way we live
To touch
Then to go
So quickly comes the
Run way
Then
Eternity
I thought on FB if I didn’t post awhile maybe absence would make my posts fonder. Wrong. Melissa and a spammer only.
It’s never occurred
The passing of the Sandhills
Through the moon
But with imagination
And a bit of trickery
It happens regularly
Ole granny died and went to her long reward
The family they never were much for formal religion
Especially the dressing up and sitting variety
They could sit a spell long on a bar stool
A deer stand or a boat seat
Cushioned pews were quite unfitting
Now granny was frugal and never spent what money they knew she had
And when the hired preacher began his eulogy
He kept telling them what a legacy
What a legacy granny left
Not conversant with preacher talk
They just figured this old vicar knew
Something they didn't
So after the burial out behind the church
They hurried home to turn upside down
The old homeplace
Searching for that legacy.
