The river of dreams

 The river of dreams

Johnclarestokes 

There is this river of which the man dreams

That someday he will paddle in the entirety 

Knowing every bend of her native beauty

Just two in the canoe of long journey

The Old Town is outfitted and trimmed

Bending branch wood paddles for the two

Lean to tent and supplies generously secured

Nothing spared for the journey of the two

But this river of which he dreams doesn’t exist

The canoe but a dry stored upside down hull

Paddles dry rot from many years out of water

But constant in his dream the thought persists.

It’s what every old waterman longs for

That journey with the elusive love he lost

To return to the rivers source at any cost 

There to dwell upon her shore for ever more.

Oceans of contemplations

Oceans of  constellations

I do not cast for the usual fare when there

I’m quite the opposite Isaac Walton 

When it comes to the art of ichthyology talking

I cannot distinguish crappie from brim 

No, my creel consists of varying contemplations

Dreams on lines sinking into murky deep

Hopes tangled in the branches determined to keep

Joy bobbing in the sparkling undulations 

And more times than not I reach my limit

The frustrated fishers feign pity my way

Some think me insane with no catch of the day

Oh, if only they could taste baked contemplation.

TImeline

May 20, I drove that afternoon to Buster Prices viewing, at Sherill-Guerry. Buster is my friend Ray Carpenter father in law. While there I was slurring my words and I. drove home. The next morning Melanie and I drove to Shands to check it out. They did a MRI but found nothing and sent me home. The next morning I had difficulty getting out of bed and thought it vertigo. We went back to Shands and repeated the MRI and still found nothing. I came home. I was no better so we returned a third time and did the MRI and they found a small blockage in the arteries in back of my head. I stayed all night in the ER hall waiting for a bed.

From there I was admitted til I went to Shands Rehab. 

One rule

 Oceans know

Johnclarestokes 

For they have been ordered

These be your bounds

And we are with one order found

Eat not of this one tree

And we can’t obey

Oh to be as the mighty ocean. 

The year of the walker

 Who would have thought 2024 would be the end of life as i knew it? Was the stroke bought on by not taking my statin pills, thinking they bought on early dementia? So what is worse, forgetting or having to teach myself to walk, to use my right hand?

By all count, it could have been massive and left me a hardship on family to maintain me. Now, it’s just annoying, but doable. 

It saddens me to have to stop work driving. Seeing friends daily. 

 

Wonder Pony

Wonder Pony was my Christmas present in Sopchoppy when I was two. Nathaniel my grandson and my sons both rode him. 

Fodder Wing

 Fodder Wing

By John Clare Stokes

Few there are and far between the Fodder Wings

Those with whom heaven and nature sings

As Blake conversing with Ezekiel beneath the tree

Or communing with the critters as did Assisi.

Who hear Sandhills and long to fly

Stuffing sleeves with hay from barn lofts touching sky

Misunderstood seers scolded yet loved for the leap

Limping alongside Yearlings in the piney woods deep

The eyes of perception clear as the Juniper Run

Everything temporal appearing in the Infinite One

Little John's upon Patmos Hammocks caught in the spirit

As beside in shade the signifying Angel sits

Naming the creatures passing through the earthly paradise

From ole Slewfoot to the spotted Flag, knowing all

Heaven and  nature as One in a Fodder Wings life

As from hay lofts high soar the strands of straw.

Painting by NC Wyeth

The Burial of Fodder Wing

From the book by Marjorie  Rawlings

The Yearling

Chagall on the wall

 Is your life one of the mundane

Of avoiding things insane

In your unquoted desperate 

Existence 

Void of the joy of it all

Or do you see Chagall’s upon

The elevator walls?

In their own waking

 Their own waking

john clare 

Mornings she would lie still slow waking

Somewhere between the opening and the closing

Back to some holler below Crumpler Mountain

Lying quietly upon a sofa bed of her own making.

No home of her own long since sold

Passed around  from generation to generation 

Somewhere between the opening and the closing

Lying quietly upon a sofa bed of her own making.

Back to some holler below Crumpler Mountain

Father calling her to board the Northfork line

Somewhere between the opening and the closing.

To Bluefield past Pinnacle Rock one last time.

Mornings she would lie still slow waking

The generations would tip toe whispering

Lying quietly upon a sofa bed of her own making.

Dreaming kitty at her feet deep in purring.

Back to some holler below Crumpler Mountain

To the tipple whistle sending men below

Deep to the veins of coal forever below

Crying quietly upon beds of their own waking

Somewhere between the opening and the closing.

Jason

 I have only ever been in the family I have been in my whole life. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I realized how blessed I was to be born into it. There is a massive missing part in this photo that will remain until the resurrection.

Justin and I will make sure Stacy is prayed for and taken care of from here on.

Not knowing Brandon’s brother Jason, I thought it was Justin who died in the accident. I should have known better for things just didn’t add up. Then I saw this photo and at first said, how did they do that? Somewhat relieved.

Son down upon the Suwannee

 Son down upon Suwannee

We must return to this bend

The place of quiet where the

heart can mend

Drink in with deer and bear

The nocturnal stare

Just beyond reach of fires glow

Glide the Chipewan slow

Past moccasin on 

Tupelo tentacle 

medusa sirens resembling

Drawing us where sand scrapes

Of leviathan warn, watching coldly

assuming us worth rolling

In the tannic black mare 

Yes, we must go there.

Sing it o’er and o’er again

 It’s now going on nearly seventy and I can still

hear her singing in the teared up voice

I wait for the fading of the song

But days it comes back just as strong

How long does it take?

Before the sound of her goes away?

I suppose we carry the song til it’s

Silenced by the grave.