Seven Saturday

 Seven Saturday

john clare

It was one of those seven

Leaf piles kind of days

One where the dawn grits

Just didn't stick

The hen, she too was reluctant

To leave the roost

The dogs languished in the foyer

Feigning an infestation of ticks

Hoping to elicit sympathy

Not to be turned out

To face the seven Saturday.

Despite the groaning to get going

Before we knew, the seven piles were blazing

The hen, she was cackling and laying

The dogs, they forgot their imaginary ticks

And began treeing and impressing with their

 squirrel chasing prowess.

And to Sir Top 'em hat

Up drove a little wonder boy

As we gathered the egg

Picked the fatted tick

And Stoked the Seven Fires 

On the Seven Saturday.

Thoreau

 Nature now, like an athlete, begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter. In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle!

Henry David Thoreau

North Florida Animal Rescue

Magnificent Migration

 Migration of the Magnificent   by john clare   Once when the Northeastern winds sent off course the South bound Magnificent Frigate, We enjoyed the time under the remote cypress hammock. She told of how on calmer currents past she had glanced upon me below, continuing onward through the night to the great Southern Archipelago. She said that had she known of such a hospitable friend, here is where the migration that night would have ended. But that was long ago when the winds blew fierce off shore and never since. The seasons merge and come the first frost of winter, I paddle out to the remote cypress hammock, in hopes perhaps in the night, the Frigatebird recalled our friendly past. But she never returns and I turn to paddle against the wind so slow. Somewhere in a harsher clime I pray, my migrating friend finds her Southern Archipelago.

Sad

 It saddens me to no end that I post so much only to have at most six or seven I think see, usually one or two for there is never feedback. I post them here from Facebook memory mainly as a repository for some future unknown. When I post such to Facebook the response is usually the same, a few with little comment. But I do it for one the same as I would for thousands. 

Julian and Buford

 The Markham sons

Johnclarestokes 

Once we had two 

 We barely knew 

 Julian one

 Bufford two 

 Taken not by the Spanish flu  

In the year of Twenty 

But by the well water sour

 Been one hundred three

Seems just yesterday 

 Julian and Bufford

 went away

Price Creek Cemetery

Joe

 Joe

Johnclarestokes 

Joe lived alone in the single wide

in the woods

alone

I’d read his electric meter

monthly

several years later

I delivered Joe a hospital bed

Joe wasn’t at all well

He slept on the floor

Later I came and picked up the

hospital bed

Joe had died in a single wide

in the woods

alone

Ralph

 Ralph

Johnclarestokes 

I no longer see Ralph 

walking into town

for the free meals

at Cleopatra Steels

food kitchen 

I no longer see Ralph

sitting on the street bench

waiting for the free meals

at Cleopatra Steels

food kitchen

Ralph was an alcoholic

Couldn’t ride a bike

Too wobbly

Ralph said he had a girlfriend

in prison

He showed me her letter

Said he must visit her

I think Ralph is dead

I no longer see him on

The Gum Swamp Road

I no longer see him

at Cleopatra Steels

Food kitchen

I hope he saw his girlfriend in prison. 

Shhhhh

 Shhhhh

Johnclarestokes 

We much prefer the hiding

The abiding in quiet

Out of way glades

Behind palmetto

Where the snake go

To escape the

Beheading

Dappled light

Coiled in tight 

Perhaps they shall 

Pass

We must stay

Still

Until they do.

Song of the Sand

 Sandhills silently soared 

toward the south soared 

a low call I thought I heard 

a high desire to soar I yearned

Cycho

 Cycho 

I know, I’m a chain smoker

I need a cycologist 

I can’t handle bars

A big o fender of spokes

Under lots of pressure

Always on my cycle

Tired

Rode hard and spun dry

So bike me!

Roundtop

 In dire need of restoration. One of the oldest structures in Columbia County is used as a hay barn. Rose Creek Presbyterian. Little round top. 

First 10k

A brother and a six mile run

It was the May 3, 1980 Alligator 10k run, my first 10k. My brother Lewis Stokes was there to cheer me on. My time was 38:35 which placed me 23rd over-all. It was tough to place in the 25-29 age group during the early days of the running boom.