That far off day

That far-off day the leaves in flight 

Were letting in the colder light.

A season-ending wind there blew

That, as it did the forest strew,

I leaned on with a singing trust

And let it drive me deathward too. 

Robert Frost

The wind and the rain

Crimson crowns

 Crimson crowns

My gold crowned lady of crimson beauty

I defend thee from the visage of me

For who best to know the enemy within

Than he who knows where treachery begins?

My crimson crowned warrior of renown 

Who defends this the honor of my golden crown

Do you not know within that for which you fall

Is but a heart of common straw?

Marion missed

 Don’t delete

Marion and I were having a grand time at the lake waiting for the plane doing touch and go’s, to intersect the moon. As he came through the edge, Marion and I both got it and were elated(stoked). A minute later I heard Marion groan, he had just accidentally deleted all 500 images off his card.

Been awhile since I’ve seen Marion. 

Traveling at home

 Traveling at home

Wendell Berry

Even in a country you know by heart

it’s hard to go the same way twice.

The life of the going changes.

The chances change and make a new way.

Any tree or stone or bird

can be the bud of a new direction. The

natural correction is to make intent

of accident. To get back before dark

is the art of going.

Tooley Farm

Madison

City on a hill

 City upon a hill

John Clare Stokes

Chief once said make it look

less like a ghost town;

But Chief, you were not

Around

When down that grand 

Noble came the ghosts

I knew upon that Avenue.

Rossi Davis said it was

Paved with cotton

And that I've never forgotten 

When in the fall of '68

Down that hill paraded

Jackie and the boys

Who almost took state

As we lined that route

And let out a shout!

There will come the day

When ole Orange Hill is filled

The last to make his way

Up the Noble Avenue

To join the ghostly 

Loved ones who climbed

The empty Noble to view

Not the Sandhills toward 

Bronson

Not the steeds of Marion

The Cranes of Alachua

Nor peanut fields of Fugate

But a 

Better city set upon 

The top of a hill.

Eternal.

You’ll shoot the stars out

You'll shoot the stars out

Would when high in the woods

Looking down from the stand

In hopes of deer or bear to fall

A grand light would descend

And as the deer and bear passed

You'd look up to hear a voice

And you wouldn't think twice

But immediately take up photography 

You didn't see that coming

And you'd just shoot the stars out.

Sorry

Resume your hunting...

Fade of glory

 

Swinger

 

Crossing the mists

 Crossing the mist

Johnclarestokes 

Quietly as the breathing tide drew from shore

Til but a faint trickle then a still pool

Into the distance mists another drew

The muted life with the mists in a swirl

Cold grew the once warm life on earth

Warmer grew the rising glow beyond

Til into eternal arms time was flung

To envelope the years of tearful mirth

Into the mists we vainly peered

Where goes our love held so dear?

How travels this spirit into the drear?

What mists can dry such tears?

Then in a gentle lifting of the mist

The mystery of the word in flesh

By faith grace the spirit does caress

In joy our downtrodden spirits lift.

We fear not the gathering gloom

It’s given that our years dwell in dim

Preparing us for the eternal realm

Our darkness into the light consume.

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.