A boy and his dog
Lewis Stokes and Goliath
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Glory
The distant glory
I viewed from afar
The distant glory
Turned to get into the car
And it was right before me.
Song
SONG(1)
In ignorance of the source, our want
affirms abundance in these days.
Truth keeps us though we do not know it.
O Spirit, our desolation is your praise.
Wendell Berry
He goes free
He goes free of the earth.
The sun of his last day sets
clear in the sweetness of his liberty.
Wendell Berry
Three
In a three foot circle
The moon appeared through the clouds
A red shouldered hawk hurried by
In the far distance a Swallowtail kite passed
Oh poo
I said, oh great Bald Eagle
Bearer of deep wisdom
Can you enlighten me?
Oh well, think I’ll ask an Osprey.
For Noah
For Noah
I saw Noah down at the Toyota
all dapper on a Monday with
bow tie and a hardback book
and he told me of a friend in
Iran who only took photos
wonderful photos from her yard
and I told him, it would not
disappoint me, if they confined me
to just the yard
and so the librarian who only lived
in yellow houses all his eighty
plus years opened his book
to read
and for some reason it made me
want to go and read some poetry
Who was my neighbor
Who was my neighbor?
That morning while out visiting Azalea and Jasmine
Mrs Boyette quietly slipped by on her morning walk
She was the mother of Greg and Brian from whom we bought from Brian
our home in ninety five
Often she would stop and come into the yard
and I’d show her the place where her granddaughters names are etched in the concrete
the pool where they swam and where some
trees once were
and I’d get to thinking of the other neighbors
Of what came of Mrs Thompson’s son on the corner
Of Mrs Duncan and her son now gone and her struggle to
keep going on alone
Of Paul and Lora and who moved in next to them
when the Geigers sold and moved on
Of how the Hunters fare
And who is the current renter in the Kerns place next to them?
And if the fellow next to them, who was good friends with Mr Brannon now gone across the street
Still holds it against me I held his misdirected
UPS shipment of a fender too long?
I must ask Barbara next door, she will know.
Daubers
Daubers
John Clare Stokes
In the loft the old volumes found
Long out of print in dusky slow rot
Words gone unread with pages bound
by homes the daubers long forgot.
In the shed the old Briggs chugs
Pull rope frayed, varnished gas
Fuel lines stopped up with mud
Dauber homes from the past.
In the barn the Columbus cooking vat
Georgia Red cane grinding to a halt
Tobacco barn rabbit burners sputter and spat
it’s tiered rows the daubers sought.
On the porch the bare bulb is dim
We chip and chip for a yellow glow
A muddy mist casts a shadow slim
Keeping daubers warm long ago.
So brilliant were our golden guilds
Forever and ever they would last
But patiently the daubers build
His kingdom clogging, long after
ours is past.
Sandra way
Sandra way
The ground orchids Sandra gave me bloom
Cat in the background with a winter soon
o’er as Litttle boy blue waited for the moon
with the camera he bought in June.
The dancing lilies
The dancing lilies
In the early chill of the mornings new light
The lilies danced with delight
An inner voice lifted in the breeze
Then replied, yes, your mother sees.
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