Scriptures
Johnclarestokes
Eighty-four and I am not too old to cry
To wake up late at night shivering in bed
Hearing those black coal cars passing by
High down that steep Crumpler mountain
I dare not wake mamma down the hall
Soon daddy will slip out through the kitchen
Before that night shift whistle post siren calls
His one man bus line up the holler will wend.
My door creaks and daddy whispers,
Come Clara Jean
I rub the night tears on the pillow quickly
Forgetting the long night of dark dreams
For today I take fare for daddy.
It matters not to us that mamma will fuss
That's the Dodson in her we easily forgive
Only a facade of outward hill born gruff
Allowing our many puppies and stray kitties.
South of the old whistle post is the church
Through the frosted window a tall boy stood
Its the preachers son eight years younger
Just arrived from up a ways in Coalwood.
He is so handsome with the coal dark hair
And today he rides the bus up to Bluefield
I try and not shake as I take his script fare
He sits right behind me as my shyness I try
and shield.
He is not at all like the boys of Crumpler
In those gleaming eyes stirs grand dreams
Of history and music and finding many cures
With a laughter in those eyes...how they gleamed!
Did daddy know today little Jerry would ride
That I would love this young man from that day
Knowing he would not always be by my side
That life was more than just script and pay?
In the night I hear that door creak softly
Come Clara Jean
I cannot tell if its daddy or Jerry
Its been so long and I am always so cold
And even at eighty-four
Tell me I am not Looney for all these
tears.
Word came just yesterday that little Jerry
passed away in Woodland Hills, California
surrounded by family.
He was merely a boy of seventy-six
A distinguished doctor from John Hopkins
and Harvard
Who found a cure for the shivering tears
of Richard Orander's girl.
