Too long have they stayed in
Their stable out back awaiting
The return of their rider
I do not dare tell them
By now their rider has outgrown
Them
And keep their hope alive
Feed them oats of imagination
And hope the bottom of
The barrel is not reached.
Calla
Long ago we took the canoe up River Rise
there beneath the cypress the calla grew
it seemed to say, can I go with you?
so it’s been with me ever since.
Someday, far away
In the mad month of March
The boy will hear a swooshing sound
And he will look ten feet up
And wonder
Why it was the sweetest sound
Ever heard
johnClare Stokes
Before he set out
On his final journey
he once again took
his magic box down
And with some
Adjustments of buttons
And bellows
He made another
Young
There were only
Thirty six frames
And by the time it
Came to take his
Own portrait
The winder came to
A halt and would
Not advance
But it mattered not
He had made
Thirty six forever
Young
And that kept
The old man
Content
All was not in vain.
One does not soon just get over things. They linger, they ring, you still sing that little I see the moon tune, you still hear the cradle creak, the walker scrape, the laughter trail away into the silent night. You awake and look at the couch, the blanket neatly folded, the cat in a deep purr it was after all.
Isolation doesn’t bother me. Since a boy I’ve been a loner, an introvert, content alone in the sandpile or under a tree with a pen and composition book. But most of us are not so inclined. We are social beings. We crave interaction. And this is one of the insidious things of this lockdown, this social separation. It doesn’t help matters that the local brown shirts, now little despots, have closed access to practically any outlet. Parks, boat ramps, bike paths, you name it, they deem it their responsibility to keep us pent in, until we break or go insane. And I won’t even begin to dwell upon the knee jerk reaction of shutting all workers down, forcing them to be grateful the very government has thrown them a 1200 bone, while an arts endowment center gets millions. Is it any wonder the young man, let go of his job on Thursday, went on a rampage and destroyed a local church?
But who am I?
One cynical loner, that’s all.
Prospects promising
The two fisherman drifted downstream around the bend at Prospect Primitive on the Suwannee. Their blue laced speech carried up and over into the palmetto where I was out of sight. I and the spirits of those once baptized in the waters shuttered. Why do men profane such scenes?
Let every creature rise-and bring
Peculiar honors to their King:
Angels descend with songs again,
And earth repeat the long AMEN.
John Clare Stokes
Long the mother stood
Awaiting the sons return
The sting of his dust
Still feeling
Clinging to her
Homespun dress.
The Rupture and the.
thousands of wins reign
John Clare Stokes
Up on Pine Mountain
The fires were burning
Down in Hazard
The snake handlers
were saying
The Rattlers are
Prophesying
The soon return
Of the Baron to the Blue Nation
The moon above is shining blue
Louisville is no longer feared
Cal’s one and done gone to Arkansas
For years they say the Sheppard’s will return
It's will be a welcome ACC dread
Coach K will cry in retirement again
St John Pitino will sigh and say why
Did I not stay
To see this Rupp Returning
To send to forgotten lakes of fire
The memory of the Texas Westerns
The one shot Laettner’s
The cursing con Hurleys
To see the banners unfurled again!
Even so
Come Rupp!
