Scriptures

 Scriptures 

Johnclarestokes 

Eighty-four and I am not too old to cry

To wake up late at night shivering in bed

Hearing those black coal cars passing by

High down that steep Crumpler mountain

I dare not wake mamma down the hall

Soon daddy will slip out through the kitchen

Before that night shift whistle post siren calls

His one man bus line up the holler will wend.

My door creaks and daddy whispers, 

Come Clara Jean

I rub the night tears on the pillow quickly

Forgetting the long night of dark dreams

For today I take fare for daddy.

It matters not to us that mamma will fuss

That's the Dodson in her we easily forgive

Only a facade of outward hill born gruff

Allowing our many puppies and stray kitties.

South of the old whistle post is the church

Through the frosted window a tall boy stood

Its the preachers son eight years younger

Just arrived from up a ways in Coalwood.

He is so handsome with the coal dark hair

And today he rides the bus up to Bluefield

I try and not shake as I take his script fare

He sits right behind me as my shyness I try

and shield.

He is not at all like the boys of Crumpler

In those gleaming eyes stirs grand dreams

Of history and music and finding many cures

With a laughter in those eyes...how they gleamed!

Did daddy know today little Jerry would ride

That I would love this young man from that day

Knowing he would not always be by my side

That life was more than just script and pay?

In the night I hear that door creak softly

Come Clara Jean

I cannot tell if its daddy or Jerry

Its been so long and I am always so cold

And even at eighty-four

Tell me I am not Looney for all these 

tears.

Word came just yesterday that little Jerry

passed away in Woodland Hills, California

surrounded by family.

He was merely a boy of seventy-six

A distinguished doctor from John Hopkins 

and Harvard

Who found a cure for the shivering tears

of Richard Orander's girl.