A Rico Redskin
In the beginning
In my punt pass and kick
Trophy Redskin helmet
I was going to be a Starr
And throw that pigskin
Over the East River Mountain
Looking back at my ‘pass’
A life of incompletions
Interceptions
and drops
I could of been a contender
I could of been a Green Bay Packer
Had not that ten foot high
goal been erected in the back yard.
For it clearly said
Go West young man
Find Jerry and join the NBA
Photographing the eagles at Watertown Lake, a scruffy gentleman approaches me in socks. Says could I send him some eagle photographs for an article he wants to write, "where the eagles gather", from scripture. I inquire where to send them, he has no computer or email. He offers me his son's address in Center Conway, New Hampshire. The young puppy hound in the old van wants out, I wonder what brings this Thoreau to encounter this scruffy photographer at a lake in Florida. I will take some eagle shots and send them to him. We may never meet again. Then again....
A short story after the John Cheever story The Swimmer
johnClare stokes
We cannot fathom the reasons men do the things we do. Why we climb oxygen-starved peaks, dive into Floridian light starved caves with our oxygen upon our backs. There is ever the thought, I need more out of life. In the case of James Cash Strickland, he simply found himself on Highway 94 beside the Tom's Creek Bridge, less than a mile out of Needmore in Echols County, Georgia.
It was on that day, approximately ten on the May morning, James Cash decided, "I shall swim to the Gulf of Mexico." James was not a particularly adept swimmer, he had a pool which he cleaned daily, but rarely entered. It was one of those painful lingering memories of children now grown and gone.
He had planned a two day kayak trip down the Tom's, entering the Suwannee River just across the Georgia border in Columbia County, journeying on to his take out point at the Highway 6 bridge. As he stood with his kayak and gear, his friend Steve from White Springs having already left with his car, leaving it at the six bridge on the Hamilton County side, he pondered. He thought of this river, the years he had spent upon it, how it was the dividing of two nations, the Timucua to the east, the Apalachee to the west. Guasaca Esqui they called it, River of Reeds. Years later in 1528 Narvaez would see it, in 1539 DeSoto would cross this River of the Deer, or San Juanee, Little St John's, in search of gold.
We do not know what led James Cash of leave the kayak beneath a tupelo tree off Highway 94 as he entered the water that morning. All he knew was a certain freedom felt, the need for more out of life taking on new meaning.
He mostly did a freestyle dog paddling kick as he was accustomed to in his pool down the narrow Tom. He eventually found his rhythm as he passed the Woodpecker route, the only bridge he would see until Road 6 and the car awaiting. The upper Suwannee was a grand swim, the water in the mythic river this time of year low enough from lack of rain that the current was not too swift, making the narrow channel a joy to swim.
The sound of the bees busy above in the tupelo trees was intoxicating and it only gave him strength to continue on. The fisherman at the Six bridge were totally fascinated to see a boat-less person making his way down stream. Like most folk in these parts though, they did not meddle into his mission and did not question when he walked over to his vehicle and left the note on the windshield and the keys on the driver side tire. "Swimming to the Gulf. Need More." James Cash.
He slipped quietly into the tannic below the fishers who never saw him, assuming him to be somewhere in the woods camping.
The river between bridge six and the old Cone bridge, named for the former Governor from Benton was lined with tupelo and cypress, a very familiar part of his journey. He recognized many of the bends and banks he had once paddled to, the old Prospect Primitive landing, Turner Bridge, Roline and the Limp Dick bend where he and his two boys used to camp up on the high sand bar.
He wondered as he continued on, if his friend Johnny wasn't somewhere near, writing about the river he too loved, still happy to be among the number one more day. He thought of following the trail through the palmetto and inviting him to come, but he had an unction, a need more to continue on without haste if you will.
Big Shoals was a thrill to shoot through. With low water, it was a raging Class 3 rapid. He knew how to safely make his way through the sharp limestone rocks hidden by doing a crab walk over them, hold high his tail bone. He had learned this years ago in a canoe class taken at the "communistic" junior college over in Gainesville.
Past the Shoals, he heard the Robinson branch falls back up in the woods a bit but he was more concerned with the large alligator he knew long dwelt on the Hamilton County side above Bell Springs. He kept to the Columbia or Timucua side as he quietly floated by the sleeping gator on the bank. Fortunately he never saw the swimmer.
The river was growing wider below the Shoals with steep, high banks and pine forests spilling right up to the waterline. He could hear the sound of traffic ahead as he went through little shoals to pass under the CSX and 41 bridge out from White Springs. He recalled the largest moccasin he had ever encountered as he once stepped over a log on the bank. He swam on to the sounds of the clarion tower bells of the Stephen Foster Memorial Park playing Foster songs, forever bringing more fame to the little St Johns, by naming it Swanee to fit his Old Folks at home song. He did some backstrokes under the 136 bridge, looking up at the Sophie Adams home by the bridge, then the Springhouse, once a thriving mecca for tourists. He was loathe to leave such familiar stretches of river, sections made immortal by the many poets and artists, including Theron Gaulding, the painter who thought so much of the river he had his ashes spread upon them.
As the bells of Foster faded, the river took him westward where it made the big bend before dipping downward toward Ellaville at the Suwannee River State Park. Ellaville, once a large sawmill owned by another Governor, George Drew, was named for Ella, an old negro woman in the Governor's employ.
He passed under the US90 bridge, then the noisy Interstate 10 dual bridges. He thought of the many travelers speeding past above, rushing East and West. He did not give it much thought, He only knew his need for more and he was heading South. By Dowling Park and the 'old folks at home' home, he was beginning to take on less the appearance of ;man and more fish, Sturgeon to be more accurate. He was no longer led by the nagging cravings that once so ruled him; need to eat, need to sleep, need to possess, need to chase. No, like the Sturgeon who would annually migrate up the river to spawn, James Cash was in a reverse spawn. Sixty years of living had come to this. It was all he had to show for. It drew him on, the journey from Needmore to need more.
The mid part of the river from Little River Springs on down to Fannin' Springs was a spring hopping nirvana: Turtle, Fletcher, Rock Bluff, Sun, Hart, Otter and a myriad of lesser known clear, cool paradises flowing into the wine-colored waters. James loved the rush of cool each spring gave and infused new energy into him.
By now the river was wide and the boats many. He was like the manatee, in danger of a prop cutting his white flesh to shreds.
The water past the Dixie County bridge at Fannin' was growing brackish. By Fowler's Bluff, the site of the pirate Black Beards sailing to bury treasure, the river was tidal with the Sturgeon and mullet jumping. He was no longer interested in any treasure from Black Beard or gold from DeSoto. Passing Hog Island, the many channels were confusing and one not familiar could easily become lost. Fortunately, he knew the way to the Gulf. He passed the charter boats coming in, heading toward Suwannee and other ports of showing their catches. He did not need to follow the buoys or channel markers out.
It had been a long, two-hundred fifteen mile serpentine swim.
His skin was white and leathery as a Sturgeon. He was at the end of the journey.
Never again in this life would he ever see Needmore.
by Aurelia D Wallace
This one won't last-the great-aunt's wagged.
They jabbed their needles like voodoo ladies
Into white cotton batting soft as flesh of bride and groom,
Embroidered the names of wedding couple, date, and church
On squares of quilts that spoke the family lineage
(After the fire when Grandpa's Bible records burned)
How little they know each other-they predicted-
Him being married and divorced before and all-
Already planning in their auntly heads a prettier square
For the next more likely one; doom served gratis
In the patterned squares.
For years we sweltered
Under quilts nobody wanted, dark with dire foretellings
From Aunt June, Aunt July, and Aunt Leo's kin.
When edges frayed, we lined dog's beds,
Covered sofas in the attic, took them to Goodwill.
In spite of aunts,
we multiplied.
Now, six kids, eight miscarriages, three abortions, and
God knows how many near-misses later,
The grownup grandkids are having lettered
Silver trays with "Happy 50th, Mom and Dad"
That someone in a junkshop some day will pay a dollar for.
That is, till lately,
after the aunts had died.
-I still have the quilt.
John Clare was on the run
Missing the six PM check in
By the time he made Orleans
The midnight white coats
Would be out searching.
The old flames at times
would gather about the
portrait of the poet
Some to reminisce
Some to lament
One to tell it was for her
he wrote the sonnets
John Clare Stokes
Said she’d forget her head
If it wasn’t attached
She’d go out without it
We’d find it
Leave it by her door
When she returned
You want to call a cousin
Possibly in Mississippi
say
Come out from all that misery
Join me
And have some iced tea
With a lemon slice
In the cool shade
Of Wednesday
It will be nice
Want say one heard
Just listen as the Cardinal calls
The dragonflies light on the lilies
The biddies made haste to keep up
The mother mockingbird makes her way
To the nest under construction
Later
Over the pines
We can watch the waxing moon rise
Maybe catch the Atlanta to Orlando
Pass through Tycho crater
We shall both be Stoked
We grow weary with the ones
Who can only see what is before them
They who find boringly unprofitable
The long sitting and staring
At the sun upon a blade of grass
Counting the infinity
Shimmering through with
Every breeze moving it slightly
Yes, in your world of weights
And measures
We could have been anything
We wanted to be
But then, to your eyes
It wouldn't include worthless
Poetry.
In my flesh
I am dull of hearing
My eyes heavy
They close
And into dream
I come
Falling
Falling
Falling
Helpless to awake
I hit the earth
I die
Then enters the word
Arise
Arise
Arise
Awake
To the
Third floor sanctuary
I'm taken
All a mystery
In this new life
I partake
Had we heeded
The great storm warnings
Gentle winds deceiving
Luring us from safety harbor
Calm waves lapping
We may have stayed
This side of the breakers
Too far the drift
Too frail the skiff
Rock a bye
Castaway
I try and watch you
Carrying them
And try to imagine
What the holding
Is to you
And the weight of them
If they burden you
Or lift you beyond joy
