by john clare
Why did you bring your Lexus
To get your meal today?
Was it simply to show
How the Lawd takes care of YO?
And what of ole Walkin' Earnest?
He came via foot three miles away
I noticed that as you sped away
I'd like to take that Lexus one day
Take it down ole Walkin' Earnest's way
Tell him, Look here Earnest,
look what the Lawd bought
YO today.
Enough this calm hypnotic flow
Deep quiet lost in silent okeefenok
We paddled on determined
When all of a sudden
A deafening roaring
Blessed roiling turbulent rage
That night in fits we laid our heads.
For over an hour I waited
Beneath the hanging shoes
No one came so I
Decided to chew some sorrel
A natural high
Wilson from the South Pacific
Was called upon to tell of his
Long ordeal drifting
In the ocean
The kids were not interested
Boring!
Soon Wilson they were
Kicking.
Myriads of eyes has she
Alluring with her palmetto lashes
Her makeup never clashing
Oh that maiden Suwannee!
Round and round and round the pint sized peloton spun around and around and around la Grande Boucle Little Merckx, Indurain, Basso,Pantani, Cavendish, Evans,Hinault,Anquetil,Chippolini,Coppi and Ullrich Only one shall don le maillot jaune The bell has rung as eleven are on the rivets Round about Round about round about they sweep Rotating furiously each takes a pull A jump and one hammers a gap It's IL Pirata pursued by the Cannibal When suddenly, from above a hand reaches down Recess over! teacher yells, as little Merckx,Indurain,Basso,Pantani,Cavendish,Evans,Hinault,Anquetil,Chippolini,Coppi and Ullrich sprint for the feeding station.
Williston has been dear to me and my family since 1967 when we rolled in to the Methodist parsonage on Noble Avenue from Kentucky. Though my fathers pastorate came to an end in 1977 and we moved to Lake City, our connection to Williston never did.
Mrs Valerie Blackburn, who lived in the trailer court where Hardee’s now stands, beside the large Mother Wilson’s two story, now gone, across the street from the white wood parsonage, now moved out toward Ocala, told me every time I visited her and her pet Mockingbird, that she was praying I would marry a Williston girl. I always laughed it off, seeing my prospects dimming with each passing year and old girlfriends marrying others.
But in the hidden realm, the day I met my niece Jessica’s nurse at Shand’s of UF, my sister saying, “you just got to meet her! She’s a Williston girl!” The minute we met, my thoughts immediately went to Mrs Blackburn. That was around 1986. In 1988 I wish Mrs Blackburn was still alive to see me marrying the Mayors daughter in Whitehurst Chapel by my father.
In 2001 my father sold his place in Crawfordville and moved back to Williston to the Chiropractor Lipscombs place near Blue Grotto on 27 across from the Catholic Church. We continued to return to Williston, sadly in March of 2011 where we buried my father at the top entrance of Orange Hill, where years prior, he had purchased several lots, then all alone beside Pappy and the beloved Whitehurst family across the street.
In 0ctober of 2017 we sadly returned to lay beside my father the best pastors wife Williston ever knew, my mother.
And so we continue to return. We continue to note the hidden. The KFC building where my sister had her first job, the empty hospital where Melanie started out as a nurse with the great doctors McCoy, Dailey, Reddy and Martin, where I later worked in maintenance and was friends with my future father in law, the empty Holiday Inn lot where we’d go swimming, the hawk in the tree by the abandoned school for sale where I graduated in ‘73 and my mother taught, the large oak tree that fell that was once beside my bedroom window, where we placed the worms for sale sign, the linear park where once the Seaboard train stopped traffic. We see the hidden. We see Orange Hill expanding over toward Joe Smiths. We hear Mockingbirds and thank the Valeries for all the prayers. We ride down the hill and pause way too often and say hello to friends and loved ones.
Cormorants and moon
Watertown
Marion and I were poised in waiting for the circling cormorants to pass near the rising moon. We saw them nearing and shot a sequence, getting practically the identical scene. Marion my student is getting quite good. I gave him an A tonight.
Lured into a faux circling of the moon
the creature fell for the Luna ruse
Still waters shimmering doom
Another in a moon trap, it’s life to lose.
My projects would take half as long if one, I wouldn’t have to continually walk across the yard for the tool I need and should of had and two, if I didn’t have to scrounge and piddle for the right screws or nails. Since we no longer have the convenient Wilsons Ace Hardware, I loathe a long trip to Lowes. Fortunately I have a hundred years of accumulation to pick through.
What do others do not so fortunate? Long trip!
Oh fuuuuudge
Yard work requires a much, much stronger disposition that I possess. I don’t know what causes the syrup kettle I’m trying to move to roll on my toe, I don’t know why I’m wearing clogs, I don’t know why drills strip and screws are star bits, I don’t know why I saw the power cord off, I don’t know why random things snag me, but it happens.
One good nostalgic moment. After I sawed the power cord, I went and found my dads old Porter Cable circular saw. It cut just as smooth as when I was a little boy.
Before we apply our
Beautiful and move on
Think for a moment
Why beautiful?
Beautiful implies a standard.
A judgement. A choice.
A perception
A feeling
Whence?
Why beautiful?
Who gave this ability to
Know beauty from what?
Why, not beautiful?
Appreciate your ability
to apply beautiful.
Don’t take it lightly.
