My eyes

 I’ve viewed life through a  Yashica

I’ve gazed through a Pentax

I’ve wondered with a Canon

I’ve been inspired by a Nikon

Each showing what I have seen

From every scene.

The hunt

 The hunt

Johnclarestokes 

The night before we’d gather in the front room

Load our butternut vests with the green 4-10 shells

Lay out the thermal long johns by the down filled coat and rub down the single shot Stevens for soon

The frozen dark of dawn would shake us

With the smell of bacon and pancakes wafting

Down the cold dog trot to one soundly sleeping

In dream of bushy tails above making a fuss

The way up the Shadeville road to Ferrell’s seemed

To take too long but soon we arrived ready

A son with his father and a proud grand daddy

To begin our morning for squirrel and rabbit hunting

We’d stop and listen for a spell to tell

Which tree the commotion was taking place

Careful not to crunch twigs in our slow chase

In hopes of finding where the barking did dwell

Beneath the large oak grand daddy pointed

To let the grandson take the first shot

As the fathers son watched and never forgot

The day he was given the honor too

The green shell smoking with a sweet aroma

Leaves falling and a grey thud upon the ground

The son beamed as no prouder three were found

Oh how he couldn’t wait to tell mamma.

Sunny Bays

 Sonny Bays

Johnclarestokes 

Sonny never dreamed when but a boy

He would end up in room One seven teen

Dowling House isn't such a bad place

The bus comes regularly to wait

for him to slowly load his walker

and take the back seat by the talker

who goes on about things gone

How she wishes she was home

Sonny would talk to her of things 

he too is missing

But she's too lost in her past to listen

Of sunny days

When Sonny Bays

Was alone and happy.

Duck season

 Roscoe and I rode to Alligator Lake after CVS for awhile. It was duck season so several hunters were on the lake in the closed on Mondays park.

Moon spun

 Moon spun

Do not lose that capacity 

To cart wheel beneath 

A gleefully full moon

Though we may lay lame

Never let that tame

The inner joy

Of a little boy!

One blew in

 One blew in

Of all the leaves in the lot, only one chose to depart, so while the others are cold and wet, this one rides shotgun warm and content.

Waves

 Waves

All our days

Shore breaks

Spewing us out

Broken and bruised

Sand encrusted

We rise at last

These waves 

Now soothing 

Living waters

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.