Clara Jean

 As a minister's wife....she was the most valued of all...for upon a moments notice....she could fill in for the pianist...the Sunday school teacher...even the preacher on a Wednesday night....all the while cooking a Sunday dinner for the guests that always came....baking a cradle cake for the newborn....keeping  the house in order...always in order for the Parsonage Committee who dropped in unannounced....preparing lesson plans into the evening....keeping up on everyone in the diary....writing the constant cards and notes of encouragement ....in sickness...in health... for birthdays....losses....never complaining or having anything amiss to say about anyone....

Gleason Nam

 Caca Dau! Caca Dau! The crazed pilot screamed, "I'll kill you!" as the Bird Dog neared the Gleason Delta, the steel dart fleshettes piercing the fuselage. "We must do an  E and E, Charlie yelled to his Peter Pilot, praying the Jesus Nut upon the prop would hold in this escape and evasion.  Into the blue stratosphere we climbed, my grease gun pressing against my flack jacket, unable to fire one shot off to the entrenched Gleason Gooks below. This is a faithful recollection of my flight with Charlie Hollis so long ago. I don't like to talk about it.

Conga

 By day the Conga played, the drinks were mixed, ceiling fans cooled malaise, beans and rice were consumed, but come closing time, the unplugged became wired, to life all came, the malts did waltz, the coca went for broke, by next day, not a word spoke, how by the back door, Heinz and Hot Crystal saucalita were found lying on the floor, I'll never say....

Iston

 Iston 

We who once dwelt in Iston 

Think of it always so

We never see it in its

Completeness 

As those who remain see it

When we approach from

Far Onson and the tower

Is nearing

As we top the hill

We expect to still see

Those familiar scenes

Stretching down Noble

Each time passing

Beneath the iston

Something is gone

A few places replaced

But mostly empty space

Leaving us to fill in the

Blanks

We do not linger

For we who once dwelt

It's painful

To those who came after us

Simply pitiful

In need of tearing down

Moving on

And we do

Sadly amid the

Exultant

Let us labor

 2 Chron 29:3

In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them.

Good lesson for me. What is entering the door of my heart, through my eyes, into my thoughts? What filth do I harbor deep within the temple? 

It took sixteen days for the priests and the Levites to cleanse the temple. May the work upon my doors begin today!

In the garden of eden

 In the garden of Eden

The iron butterfly soared 

Upon the wind

Down from the red mountain

The chimes of heaven

Tinkling 

Don’t you know I’ll 

Always be true?

Only in a seventeen minute span

Plummet to earth

Cast drunken, a windless tangle

From

In-a-gadda-da-vida.

Swamp lily

 And in the first evening 

Came the six as one

Each to his own direction

By the morning of the second

To one vision they turned

A bouquet for the new day 

For by the evening of the third

The glory of the gathered 

But a memory of the first bloom

The Ceylon Swamp Lily

Crinum Zeylanicum

Tug a tore

 Tug a tore

John Clare Stokes

It's a painful thing

This pull to reclaim

The works of man

We hew the pew

From the oak

Sew the curtain

From the cotton

Then comes the briar

The branch

The worm

To reclaim its own

We held so long

The burning of the

Slow pulling rope

Stings

Taking men's things

Across the line

Winning every time.

Verbenadale Church

Williston

Days of Job

 Days of Job

John Clare Stokes

When Sabeans maul

When fire falls from heaven

When Chaldeans storm

 When great winds come

When one escapes to tell

When grief is poured

When in dust you dwell

Blessed will be the name

Of the Lord still.

Them bones

 Them bones

John Clare Stokes

Tell us a mystery 

I shall tell you one

How opened upon

The old pulpit dusty

Dry bones long dead

Began to tremble

And then assemble

When words were read

Come forth His cry

You army of bones

To Zion march on

Ye shall not die

What a mystery!

Vision

 Vision

Vision can be such a difficult thing

One can be impatiently pointing

Exasperated you cannot see

The obvious hidden in the trees

Have compassion upon we the blind

To our dimness be kind

God didn’t give me eagle vision

But big ears

For listening

Her Prince

 Her Prince has come

In vain I tried to convince her

As the Prince emerged 

From the magic stone

The end of your woes has come

You can leave that Chiefland apartment 

Why have a castle upon a Utah mountain 

if you want

Eat at the Gathering Buffet everyday

But lo

It was all for naught

She couldn’t get beyond

Kissing the frog.

Dougon

 Dougon, the ancient manatee, was the name of the canoe from Mohawk Bob Jones and I paddled in.

What went ye?

 What went ye out into the wilderness to see?

A Swallowtail shaken with the wind?

The world dawning

 The world dawning

John Clare Stokes

It’s a kind of world

One could grow fond of

Wolves and coyotes joining

Stars in their brightest twinkle

Prayers it seems come easier

Distractions yet to awaken

Frosty Morn

 Frosty morn

John Clare Stokes

Like Frosty the Snowman

I long for some magic

In the old pith hat

My father once wore

To work the bee hives

To weed the acre pea rows

Below Wakulla County skies

And how the gardens would grow

There is now so much I do not know

So little that I can remember

The crepe myrtles need pruning

The Christopher lilies aren’t blooming

But am I even in the right season? 

I rub the old pith hat

Bend to separate the clustered bulbs

An ever slight hint of fall 

Is in the hot Florida air

I pray for another snow

as in eighty-nine

so I can build again my father

and place upon him

his old beekeepers pith hat 

I know there must be some

magic in.

The Watchmen

 The watchmen

John Clare Stokes

Sabbath sunrise where he once sat

sins weight upon his back

to rise and deliver the word

from empty chairs yet heard

Echoing words from the watchman

lifting up one voice

together they sang for joy

eye to eye they saw

the return of the Lord to Zion.

Sabbath sunset where I sit

sins weight pressing yet

rise up my son to find

eyes and eyes upon Zion

Mrs Mary

 Mary Robinson Davis Rudd  1885-1960. My fathers first appointment to the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church was the tiny Mayberry-like town of Sopchoppy in Wakulla County in 1955. The panhandle town of under 600 was located on the banks of the crooked dark waters of the Sopchoppy River, which ran into the Oclockonee River, which ran into the Gulf at Panacea. My father preached one sunday at Sopchoppy, then the next at the county seat of Wakulla in Crawfordville.  My mother taught fourth grade at the nearby native stone school and during the day Mrs Mary kept me. Mrs Mary and Mr Emory Rudd lived next door to the church and parsonage on Rose Street in a wooden one story white cracker style house with the two front rooms and the rear kitchen. I loved the time with the Rudd's, looking forward to Mr Emory showing me the rats he had trapped in the barn the evening before, saving me his match boxes and Prince Albert tobacco tins to play with.  A good carpenter, Mr Emory made me a nice wooden high chair I could use to sit at the kitchen table with.  Mrs Mary and I would walk about the yard and collect the eggs the chickens had laid in the barn and under the bushes in the yard. She would then make me my favorite food of all time, her special bread pudding.  It had to be the eggs I assumed, for even to this day, the consistency has never been matched. Mr Emory was a fiddle player in a band that played down at the skating rink across the street on the river and he liked to rock a horse me on his foot and sing to me.  They had a nice front porch swing under the shady magnolia I would lay upon and watch as the occasional car would pass. One morning in 1960, mamma told me I would not be going to Mrs Mary's today. I remember looking out the window in our living room to their house and seeing a hearse. That evening mamma took me over to the house and there Mrs Mary was, lying in wake in the front bedroom.  It was one of the first death's I had seen, yet somehow I understood at the age of five. Soon after I went to stay with Mrs Porter, then the beloved Angeline Donaldson, who kept me in our home. But of all the dear ladies who kept me, none were loved more than Mrs Mary.

Where the Methodist church now is on the left was once Mr Emory and Mrs Mary’s home. The magnolia tree over hanged the front porch. Across the street was the Sopchoppy River.

The three

Buteo Bearing

A spot of bother

Great Blue Drops 
 I went ahead and chose. For the Last Wally Reichert show I had the framery do my two entries. It was 200.00.ouch! I won 100.00 for first so not too bad.

For the Branford show 8 glicee prints from Mpix cost around 42.oo and three frames from Amazon around 30.00. For 11x17 and 9x12 print. I want to see how much emphasis they put on how it’s framed.

Also, I didn’t go outlandish with my subjects since judges generally don’t go for it. I stuck with wildlife. 

Some of the Club members have $$$ so they will enter their triple matted scenes from Iceland, Scotland and beyond. 

Branford Show

 The 3rd annual Branford Camera Club Show is due this Saturday. I can enter three for 15.00. I’ve narrowed it to 8 and  have asked several to choose their top 3. The heron is number one, then it’s up in the air, probably the river next.

Pause past

 He paused at the waters edge.... peering beyond into the cypress swamp....Hearing that elusive Ivory Bill calling....Cross over into the darkness falling....it was not my claim...to receive a poets name....my life has been an eighty mile journey....to find my Mary Joyce...not my choice...the name was given to me....

Those sons of Isaac

 Those sons of Isaac

And Jacob wrestled with that bike all night

While the squirrel Esau barbecued was out of sight

Sea Lovers

 Sea Lovers

Johnclarestokes 

After the smoked mullet and foaming brews

As the morning catch iced on the slimy dock

And as the stinking chum began to stew

Into the ocean the two lovers did drop

Pressed against the rusting rail they clasped

Gulls scattering from oyster shells openly seeping

Lurching out beyond memories of caresses past

Far from the bar the lovers were swept

Throw the Jim Buoy to rescue the down fallen 

tumbling couple tangling in monofullfillment

Slowly sinking to Asrai’s calling 

Beyond the grasp of mortal help

And yearly we return to gather on the docks

Throw the wreaths to appease the craven sea

As the tide swells and the waves lift

upon the outgoing tide receiving the gifts

We raise a toast to lovers whom oceans need.

The Gospel Mile

 The gospel mile

John Clare Stokes

If anyone has ever run the mile on a track, for time, one cannot appreciate the agony and euphoria. The gospel mile is my analogy. Lap one is Matthew, all your genealogy of workouts, of the sprinting power poles, hills, long distance, pacing go into play. Lap two is Mark, you usually run your fastest, most confident lap before the wall is met. Lap three is Luke. By now you’re in need of a physician as you starve for oxygen. You do not think you can continue at the needed pace. You need grace. Lap four is John. The mystical experience. The way revealed. You get that second wind as spent you find the energy to run beyond yourself. The barriers are broken and you run not upon your air, but the air that comes from above. 

Laying in the infield, looking up at the stars of day, waves of adrenaline coursing through the legs still twitching, you are at one. You are a miler.

Mile

 Exact Instant

John Clare Stokes

Do you recall the exact time

You crossed the finish line

Stumbling forward to fall

spent in waiting arms

Not a world record

But your personal record

to be written in the diary 

and recalled years later

Amazed at your prowess? 

I do

With the long standing mile record broken recently, this is timely. 

Whence the day

 Whence the day

John Clare Stokes

I told my love

There are fields

I know of

Where the fritillary 

Hover in reach

Above

Where there is

No time

No time at all

And that is why

I want to take you there

If a picture paints

 Once I was told something to the effect a picture tells a thousand words, so I wrote a thousand words about the picture.

Sweep stroke

 Sweep stroke 

John Clare Stokes

It wouldn't take much

To sweep me 

You could even be gangly

And gnarly

But if you came to my abode

Toting your kayak

With a pack full of

Poems you wanted

Me to help you meld

into a sonnet

While we floated 

Upon some clear stream

Sublime

You'd be mine.

Bait face

 Bait face

John Clare Stokes

She decided she’d 

go fishing Sunday

so she fixed up her face

took a sultry selfie

So far she’s caught 

five of us

Don’t know the limit

Or even if she has

A license

To catch us

Mary Joyce

 Mary Joyce

Clare never had her as his own, spurned him, but it never deterred him, the drawing so strong in later years, toward his end, he escaped the asylum he was in, to walk seventy miles in search of her. 

I well relate to Clare and his mythical Mary. 

The girl from grade school, the one who first kissed me, the one I never broke with, I just moved away in the summer, to this day has a line in every sonnet I compose.

If I found she was seventy miles northward, I do think I would break the walls I dwell behind and set out in search of her.

Kay

 Shoes for Robert

John Clare Stokes

If you stick around long enough, and have the mindset of one who holds things in memory, long after they should have been forgotten, eventually you just have to purge it, like a tumor, or it will overtake you. 

There are many such stories, some now humorous years past the time it wasn't, some that continue to cut, long after the sharp slice, now dull and painful.

She was pompous as a pomegranate dangling upon the hem of a Pharisee. She hailed from Albany where lately she had arrived in our tiny city, comparatively, full of resentment for her demotion. It was her last stop and she was going to take it out upon us at full price. 

There was a family of fine cooks out by the airport and it was the habit of many to be found dining with them every Sunday. So it was just a matter of time this pompous Presbyterian would find her way to the finest. 

We do not recall the season she went into her closet, arranged by the proper colors of proper wear, perhaps the dark season of fall and winter, but she in her fashionable attire, dragging her husband with the humble name Joe, sat to dine. It was at the time of dessert the delight began, for she was ordering sin. Something familiar to this Presbyterian, even if she only saw it in others.

Well, from then on then, this was her family, this family of cooks. She would do anything for this sin, to offering the chief cook discounts on shoes, why for the whole family, why not, of which he fully took advantage, as the poor salesmen had to drop everything, to please him. And oh, every Christmas and Thanksgiving and Independence Day of Russia had to be catered in, with the stipulation of a big pan of sin.

Oh, he was all in. Charging for the privilege full price. But it mattered not to her, they were family.

It was a bitter sweet day she retired to an island around Tampa. No more chocolate delight. The new manager aghast at the price paid. No more discount on shoes. Why what was a fine cook now to wear? No more privileges for anyone. It had all come to an end. 

The pomegranates upon the hem left jingling.

Look mommy

 Blue Sky

Look mommy

There are aero planes in the sky

So I cease mowing

Sit with camera waiting

Look mommy

Not an aero plane in the sky

And the moon knowing

is sinking 

But isn’t the grass glad

Kick the can

 Kick the can

John Clare Stokes

I’ve come way to far beyond the age of ten

far, far to ever bring it back again 

And now, seven decades into the playing

they are yet saying

it’s time to set aside the childish ways

but there are no nest eggs

no pensions of the prudent

no golden parachutes 

I shall not retire to the Blurry Place

These toys shall serve this boy

It’s all he has

Too, too far beyond the age of ten.

Thirteen years

 Thirteen years for Osiana

 John Clare Stokes 

   Oh Osiana! We shall never know 

  Why to Benton you came into a world of kerosene

  fat lighter walls and woods that seem 

 To stretch forever above the lanterns glow 

  Oh Osiana! Too dark were the long Needmore nights

  the need to always trim the lamps

  set high above your outstretched hands

  When to you the stars offered enough light

   Oh Osiana! Oil upon your gown of pure cotton 

  Too angelic for the time you came

  Surrounded in the glare of a terrible flame

   Too soon after that full moon your dying done

  Oh Osiana! Why to a world of kerosene did you come!

Before the tree fall

 A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Beyond Measure

John Clare Stokes

Once the man was rich beyond measure

Seven boats for his maritime pleasure

Once the man was rich beyond measure

Seven bikes to pedal at his leisure 

Once the man was rich beyond measure

Seven cameras of the fastest aperture’s 

Once the man young, time was unmeasured

Seven years if that many now most treasured

Hide and seek

 Ready or not

John Clare Stokes

When a little boy

When counting to ten

seemed plenty long

to run and hide

I’d find that secret place

where they’d never find me

and they’d search

and their voices would grow

anxious

and they’d say

that’s long enough John come out,

come out wherever you are

Eventually after taking all the fun

from hide and seek

I’d emerge and run safely to the base

but no one was there to tag me

they had moved on to some other fun

today, I am yet in the same hiding place

I can hear God counting

he’s on seven

Oh, He must find me

He must!

Ready or not 

Here He comes.