Ethels remains

 Shoes and shawl that Ethel wore

John Clare Stokes

I like the song Tom T Hall sang on his Songs from Sopchoppy album, Shoes and dress that Alice wore. Several years back, my cousin from Mississippi, Jeanne Bradford Rowland, gifted me with her mother and my fathers mother  size 4 shoes, her shawl, dress gloves and a braided lock of her auburn hair. We never knew Ethel Marie Wike, born Jan 28, 1899 and who died sadly on August 1, 1937 at their home in Homewood, Mississippi. My father was only 14 and Aunt Esther Irene 11. Recently the shadow box the items were in was broken by the cats. Yesterday the new and deeper shadow box arrived. I am grateful to Jeanne for keeping her memory alive.

On Panther Lane

 

Dead man walking

Leave a note

You never know

It could be your last

And you wouldn’t want

To leave your loved ones

Without some final lines

 Dead men working

I will keep on photographing

Writing so called poetry

Until the day I’m gone

You can find it in the

Middle room

Stacked quite haphazard 

Enough to make

One fine fire if perchance

It’s the wintry season

I’ve departed

White white white

 Whited mantles

If I see another perfectly arranged life

With the whited theme

I shall scream

But then

Who would hear

O the ignominy 

Of the off whites

Ashes, ashes

Ringing around the rosies 

As the Eastside PE instructor had the third graders circled, my hands tightened upon the wheel. Again I was on the Monticello playground. The instructor telling us the last one to fall down would have to tell who their girl or boy friend is. Terror seized me. 

They must not know who I secretly liked.

Under the bus

 

Both my grandfathers were associated with buses. Grandpa Orander was a bus driver and Grandfather Stokes store was a bus stop. 

Called to fly

 There are those called to fly

Before they ever take wing

In womb hear the Sandhill cry

Or feel the oceans roaring

There is a softer wind

There is a quieter song

There is a darkness fleeing

There is a coming home

Brownie and Magoo

 The boy and the magical Brownie

Each day the boy and his Brownie

would set out in wonderment 

to see what magical scenes unfolded

before them

and it wasn’t long

I’d say around seven frames

they’d find a cloud beckoning

to rest upon it for the next

Seven wonders to visit them.

Bug and Bucky

All alone home home on the range

Bug and Bucky rocked  to the flames

Seldom we thought we heard

An encouraging word

The skies were quite clear all day...

Swing high

 Swing High

by Johnclarestokes 

To the skies above with the

hawks I swing

Below my bare feet brush the

sand and stings.

Pumping hard to reach above the

dogwood blooms

Each passing arc nearer and

nearer to blue I zoom.

And as the butterfly fusses

and flits

The locust looks and his

tobacco spits

Bees buzz and struggle under

their pollen load

Dragonflies swoop and taunt

the patient toad.

I swing in ever widening circles

The blues, the golds, the browns

all one swirl

and I leap

and I am but a speck

way above the cloudy world.

I am a hawk.

Palmetto halo

 A palmetto halo

John Clare Stokes

It’s about the only crown

This shadow of a man shall adorn

No goodness found

Of all self righteousness shorn

We men the earth born

in the darkness and shadow dwell

Can the fallen leaves ever adorn

The green of life before we fell?

Stetson men