It could be called from gloom to gloom had we not a hope within of reunion, thus we go from glory to glory. The Gloam the interlude between the last rays of day and the night. The still time when we pause to reflect upon the passing day.
It’s the trees I will remember
in the barest times of their December
to the covering canopy of summer
I shall never lament the pausing
but for a moment upon the journey
for trees I will gladly take the fall.
2004-March 5,2016
Today has been deemed
good boy day
Freed to jump and play
Wet and shaking from retrieving
Time and again
Never more tiring
Tis but a short swim
To the other side
And soon I shall meet you
Forever more
In pools of living waters to
Abide
Dinner always came precisely at five
As she would shuffle for the elevator
Five floors up
It was not the eating she looked
Forward to
But the sneaking
The hiding back for the squirrels
Who she fed
Who could climb down
Head first
She longed for claws
Of a life without falls
Of landing on all fours
Outside these palatial
Fifth floor ledges....
John Clare Stokes
Every year we warn the azaleas
the redbuds and the dogwoods
wait upon your bloom
wait at least until the mid of March
When winters blasts have passed
But they ignore our pleas
Fill out the bare limbs with leaves
Bloom in the finest display
But winter is a subtle killer
He only needs one evening
And in the wee hours of darkness
Spreads his frost upon the flowering
By morning the land is white as
Tombstones
As winter moves on
And Spring mourns her loss.
I have dwelt with these rails
All my days upon this earth
Stacked and split
Carried and set
And I sit beside these
Rails and I tell
Of all those passing
To the azaleas bloom
Upon the other side.
I dug the grave
Would he fit I thought
And so I enlarged it to
The dream I had of
Throwing dirt overhead
From the deep pit
Hoping to strike water
Or oil
But it was not to be
Digging never amounts
To anything but
Sorry poverty.
I tell my love in rhyme
In a sentence that must end,
A measurable dividend,
To hold her time against time.
I praise her honest eyes
That keep their beauty clear.
I have nothing to fear
From her, though the world lies,
If I don’t lie. Though the hill
Of winter rise, a silent ark,
Our covenant with the dark,
We will speak on until
The flowers fall, and the birds
With their bright songs depart.
Then we will go without art,
Without measure, or words.
Wendell Berry
He rarely stayed up past nine, usually by eight he would retire to the room with the A/C window loudly humming. In the front room we would be up watching TV, where I would move from the vinyl couch to his more comfortable recliner, usually changing the channel from CNN he always watched. In the kitchen mom would be washing dishes in the single cold water faucet sink or baking a blueberry pie from what we had picked earlier in the day. A pot of hot water was always simmering for the dishes on the back burner or a bath in the four leg tub. Before daylight he would be awake in the kitchen, lighting the gas stove to take the chill off with a fat lightered stick, getting ready to pour the pancakes on the stoves built in griddle, sprinkled with blueberries naturally.
