Other side of the tracks

 Other side of the tracks

Johnclarestokes 

I always wanted to live near the tracks

Just on the other side 

Down a narrow, winding lane

Hear the coming of the long train.

Lee, Florida

US90

The Secret Stables

 The Secret Stables

Johnclarestokes 

There are secret stables waiting

For rides of imagination

Winking

Blinking 

Nod

All saddled and shod

Gentle ones 

Unbridled

No blinkers

Winkers

Or stirrups needed.

Brown Street

Mists missed

 In the quiet mist...I cannot quite convey...How much we miss...This earthly place....I'm told and told...This is not home....Look for streets of gold....Well, they never knew…Give me Homewood of old...The heart pine porch....A simple creaking swing....Smoke house aroma pouring forth....And in heaven I sang.....

The budding wood

 The budding wood 

Johnclarestokes 

From trees of life grafted in

Eastward out of Eden's garden

Planted in the holy sanctuaries 

To forever bud anew

Growing into psalm upon psalm in song

Wood fit for the Master's whittling

In the cool of the eternal evening.

Falling Creek formerly Methodist church

Full moon

 My sister asked me for a pic of the moon. So i went out the road and took several. Downloaded. She thought i sent a fake!

DYI

 The reciprocal saw needed a new cord. I used a cord off an ancient drill that was frozen. It works. 

Ole Homewood

 Old Homewood

John Stokes

On this October 16th, Rev Luther Ray Stokes birthday.

The coming November turning of the mill

Around old Homewood the family collecting

Traveling to gather for the syrup making

To Thanksgiving blueberry pancakes waking.

Hear the old yellow Gravely powering up

Setting the wheels upon the circling path

Warm to the rabbit burners kerosene drip

Soon to boil the juices hop and skip.

Face aglow he adjusted the burners flame

As buckets of juice into the kettle came

At sixty gallons we stopped the squeezing 

To begin the boiling juices skimming.

Nearing noon the right specific gravity

Down to ten gallons the syrup beginning to candy

Quickly we quenched the flame and dipped

Through muslin the amber poured and bottled.

Then we would give thanks around the mill

In the sugar shack tables were filled

And we would pray this would always be

The making of old Homewood with friends and family.

Remember Luke’s wife

 

Cast off

 

A shy cow

 

As trees

 As trees 

John Clare Stokes

You get to the age

When you think

By now I should 

See clearly

But the vision is

Still cloudy

Men as trees walking

Not discerning

An arm from a branch

A leg from a root

And the voice you hear

Is it of man or is it

Of fowl

I take to the limbs

Carefully

Saw in hand

I begin cutting

Not knowing from

Whence comes

The screaming.

Is it sap

Or is it blood?

Missing men formation

 Missing Men formation

I am not certain which is worse

The missing of the living

Knowing they are somewhere out there

If they too are longing for you

If ever the Holy Spirit will break through

Or the missing of the gone

Knowing they are safe with the Lord

And that we shall soon enough be home

Yes, it's the missing of the living

Praying that before eternity they 

Make it home.

Today, Oct 16, my father would have been a hundred. He went home in March of 2011. It's been since 2012 that we have heard any word from our first son Landon in the Air Force.