To the beginning of the
walking dead season
To the smell of
free food they weave
Bless you Cleopatra
Steel for feeding
the walkers of these
idle streets
keeping them alive
so they can man the
steel benches
in olden rags fully
placing to the curb
the styrofoam
Condiments.
Every October my late friend Roger Sessler and I would assist the Gainesville Cycling Club at the Santa Fe Century ride rest stop at Watermelon Park. It gave us free entry for the next days Horsefarm 100. I tell myself I will one day get back into shape to ride the hundred, but without Roger daily stopping by to ride and my post stroke condition , it is a fading prospect. This year due to the damage from hurricanes Helene and Milton, the cycling festival has been cancelled.
By Evening’s Sabres slain
Emily Dickinson
Soon as dies the sunset glory,
Stars of heaven shine out above,
telling still the ancient story,
their Creators changeless love.
Jubilate! Jubilate! Jubilate! Amen!
Telling still the ancient story,
their Creators changeless love.
Samuel Longfellow
A Calm Beyond
When blows the gulf winds strong
Taking from the land the calm
We look beyond the tumult found
To the place of familiar ground
Where the river we know ever flows
Bringing peace to the Gulf of Mexico
And we in calm known again pray
Heal the torn land beyond ole Suwannee.
John Clare Stokes
To golden days
Suwannee
I would floor me if just once Johnny or some other writer would share what I’ve written, not what I’ve photographed sans the writing. All I ever get is beautiful.
That is fine. It would just be good if someone appreciated the words above the pictures.
John Clare Stokes
At first he said he wasn't going
By now he should be retiring
Having made it finally...
And not working at sixty,
Driving for a living.
What kind of cloak could
he pick?
One that would hide where
All the years continued to
stick,
Lingering years from lithe
times of being lean,
Fitting in places he only
dreamed! how now?
And the old flames,
would they even recognize
what it was in him that
once drew them?
Causing them to give their
Promises to him,
meeting at some out for the
evening parents home,
doing things never since done.
Would they still wear the
braces and beads?
Wave the pom pons and
twirl the batons
tauntingly?
Hide yet their unrequited
Love for him?
Never flaming out after all the years?
Probably not.
Caught up in the grand babies
praising,
their own husbands providing
now this love to them.
Splendid lives.
How dare this old hurdling
hoopster crash the reunion!
All was going so well,
Not dwelling upon the past.
Lately when we go to Williston, I go out to my late father in laws shed, and it is sad, the tools and such he owned so well ordered. He told me often before he passed on to take anything I want, but I hesitate.
For one, I too am over run with all the tools and such I inherited from my late father, not at all well ordered, and I lament the thought of after I am gone, this link to my father will all but cease. My sons have no interest in the things, they will have little sentimental attachment.
Our idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak, they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Jeremiah 10:5.
I tried to trace today, the beginning of the
Love for basketball
For in Sopchoppy
All I wanted to be was Walt Dickson
Halfback for the Yellowjackets gridiron
I recall going to a basketball game
In the old native rock gym
The mighty Jackets taking on
The Crawfordville Panthers
Maybe that was the planting
Of the seed
And by the time we moved to
Monticello
Daddy built my first goal and
Backboard in the back yard
To which Walt and Bart Starr
Aspirations
Turned somehow to wanting
To be a Hondo Havlicek Celtic
So when the Fourth grade A
Was scheduled to play the
Fourth grade B at halftime
Of a Monticello Tiger game
I was the go to man
To face the talented
Bobby and Butch Plains twins
Marc Bishop and I did the
Best we could
And when half time came to an end
I was high scoring man on the losing
B team with three points
Sinking my first free throw ever.
The love of hoops was fully born
The next year when we were to
Move to Wilmore, Kentucky
Just twelve miles south of
Mecca Lexington
The epicenter of basketball
A Wilmore Cub
I became a Rupp Runt
And have been ever since.
In the shed hangs the original iron
My father hoisted in long ago
Monticello
The goal still glows hot
From years of swishing.
JohnClare Stokes
I was a bus drivers daughter riding the holler
We rode over the dark coal tunnels far below
To the two story stucco home at lines end we’d go
Our days fares counted out in shiny silver dollars.
We’d often stop along the Northfork route
To rescue a kitty or puppy gone astray
Hiding them in the basement from Monnie
But really, she didn’t at all mind.
I can still hear daddy’s bus to Crumpler coming
Those bone tired coal miners going home
As in this dream it won’t be long
Up to my warm, warm room I’m climbing.
And I’m sitting upon the first row seat so happy
The blackened passengers of Pocahontas mine
Wake us daddy when we get to our parting time
I promise I’ll count the silver dollars accurately.
I was a bus drivers daughter riding the holler
Awake now! Come along with the kind miners
And what shall we name your kitty purring?
Why of course, Black Daisey, that’s perfect daddy.
Melanie told a funny true story. They got a new female doctor new to the area. She was traveling up 75 and kept getting calls, kept pulling over. So she sees this cafe and decided to go in and catch up on the calls. She sits awhile and the waitress said she’d have to order, so she gets a blt. She eats and the waitress pushes her to move on, they need the table. So she leaves Cafe Rustic, or at least that’s what she thought the sign read. She wondered why all the ladies were going about scantily clad.
I’ve been working in the garden lately. Not planting any vegetables, though okra, squash, cucumbers are sprouting. I am just hesitant to plant them for the bugs. I have lots of marigolds, a planter of lilies, cherry tomatoes put out one here and there. Have a bell pepper growing. Have lots of spider lilies that need a spot. Strawberries are growing but not producing.There are several morning glory plants growing. The okra is playing out. The sweet potatoes did nothing. All the greens, turnips, beets, kale was eaten by bugs.
