Flowing to the Suwannee River
To the roaring
They tell me to take them
To the source of the roaring
They ask me
Is it easy to access
Can anyone come to the roaring
And I sigh
For I fear I have revealed a place
Not of roaring
But whispering
I’ve been to places
Never seen
Traveled great distance
Without going
Gazed upon strangers faces
Intensely knowing
Won countless races
Pacing ever so slowly
Found love overflowing
In all things lowly
In dream
Johnclarestokes
There were long hours spent on the porch
Tin roof shading from the Florida sun
The silence interrupted by the wire swatter
From beneath in sand the ants would come
Carrying below the high porch the silent
ones who moments before sucked blood
The itching persisting into the evening
As the moths circled around the bare
yellow bulb swaying to the rocking
Mosquitoes waking for the evening shift
The fly swatter of little use to defend
bare flesh from the incessant assaults
‘til we’d have to retreat to the front room
the high tongue and groove ceiling above
with the long wire white bulb extinguished
to sleep as the cicadas from sand emerge
to sing the song long into the nocturne
the song of how yellow flies the time
no amount of swat the sting assuage
ever more from Florida sands to swarm.
Past the barns, past the cemetery, Westward from the village. Many traveled,never to return.
Rising
Wendell Berry
Having danced until nearly
time to get up, I went on
in the harvest, half lame
with weariness. And he
took no notice, and made
no mention of my distress.
He went ahead, assuming
that I would follow. I followed,
dizzy, half blind, bitter
with sweat in the hot light.
He never turned his head,
a man well known by his back
in those fields in these days.
He led me through long rows
of misery, moving like a dancer
ahead of me, so elated
he was, and able, filled
with desire for the ground’s growth.
We came finally to the high
still heat of four o clock,
a long time before sleep.
And then he stood by me
and looked, so that my own head
uttered his judgement, even
his laughter. He only said:
“That social life don’t get
down the row, does it, boy?”
Today i burned the large pile of brush from Helene. There is still much in back but it will wait until the next hurricane next week.
The Bluegrass Way
Nothing would be finer than a slow ride about the Kentucky countryside on a crisp autumn day.
Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill
Richard Oranders only girl would have been 96 today. Seven years gone on this earth, seems so long to miss.
John Clare Stokes
Tonight I sit up
With a dying moon
Soon to slip beneath
Tree sheets
Alone
I mourn
And then it occurs
I am the one
Soon to slip beneath
The forever sleeps
The moon
Mourns
For me
