By John Clare
For I have waited all the night
For the rising of the first light
In the depths of death I lay
Longing for the life of day
My soul in Sheol did dwell
Bound in dark cold of hell
In tears my bed was washed
Would the night wails ever stop!
The tormentor said curse God and die
You are but grass under night sky
In sorrow I said it must be so
For only this long night I know
Then from the darkest Sheol
A word scribed long ago
The Lord my God lightens my darkness
Light dawns in the darkness for the upright
The unfolding of His word gives light
From this dark dungeon I arose
Sweet light!
Pleasant to the eye from one whom the darkness he knows.
I recall when Landon and I studied what scripture he wanted for his first tattoo.
It couldn’t be too long(pain) or too short, Jesus wept. He settled upon one of my favorite verses from John, John 3:30 where upon seeing Jesus, John the Baptist exclaimed, “He must increase, but I must decrease”.
A surfer then, I do not know if he still has the tattoo under his left bicep. When he entered the Air Force, he had to remove one painfully on his neck.
Daily I struggle with this scripture. Today I said, no weigh! I refused to weigh as every day has been a gain, not just physical, but ego and other load bearing sin, and at the same time, I read the daily scriptures which I often fall behind in, His increase so needed.
Yesterday an old
Stream of conversation
Was visited
Concerning my ancestry
There at the end
Was Elizabeth
Saying she was following
From the fringe
Now Elizabeth is gone
Another poet artist
Taken in mid rhyme
and I lamented
Gods indifference
To our works
Had it been me
I'd have kept her here
At least a
Hundred and fifty years
Or until all who loved her
Works
Died before her.
1937-12/13/2014
There are things
I feel worth seeing
Worth reading
I’d be remiss
If I said it doesn’t
Trouble me
So few if any
See
Were the day not pressing me on
The assembling light line I’d have joined
Light lifted me, light lifted me
When nothing else could help
Light lifted me
The young men shall dwell in their own world
The old ladies shall sleep on in this world
John Clare Stokes
November mornings I hear the bob white
whistling in the kitchen and know
that soon the cane syrup
will be hopping by the noon light,
the amber sweetness compared to Berts
down in the woods of Mt Beasor,
out from Sopchoppy,
with Mrs Cora teaching Clara the art of
fluffy biscuits for the Methodist preacher,
with a little help from Mary Rudd above,
while little Jumpy climbs high the pummy
pile to claim king of the mountain,
only to be cast down by Robert his best friend
to muster the strength to climb again,
as over the green stamp plates grace is said,
the syrup poured reverently over the hot biscuit,
and later in the night while awake in his bed,
the little boy quietly whistles for bob white,
knowing he will soon answer in the cold
starry November Wakulla night.
Not everyday do you have opportunities to do good. Oh, you can cut out the F bomb words, empty the trash, replenish the files, compliment someone who their bosses never do, do those not my job things, so today, I helped an invasive tree frog unable to hop for all the webs he got tangled in last night. He stuck around awhile watching me, then was able to hop off. He could not help being invasive. Oh, I emptied the trash too.
A stoked registered.
On the light line
There is a certain jocular nature to nature. You spend thousands in glass and gear, in hopes of bringing nature near, and in the end, you use the iPhone for your dancing. It figures.
