The Office

 The office

Johnclarestokes 

I used to love to visit my fathers office at the First United Methodist Church in Wiliston and just sit and look at the photographs of people I had known all my life. There were the turkey feet paper holders he made from the gobblers he loved to hunt. The large fish hook from his deep sea fishing with Fred Benton in Panacea and his symbol as a fisher of men, the bald is beautiful sign I thought so funny in the day before I followed suit. My father was appointed to Williston from 1967 to 1977, having returned to the Florida Conference after being the Alumni director and head of Public Relations at Asbury college, his ala mater n Wilmore, Kentucky.  Williston, next to Crawfordville was the closest place to what we would call home, my brother Lewis calling Williston his hometown to this day.  When we had my mothers funeral in the sanctuary a few years ago, where now what was once my fathers office was then the choir robe room and elevator entrance. Long time church secretary Nancy Whitehurst Etheridge told me it was now the ushers room. I told her Hank Radasky and Orville Wheeler, ushers when we were in Williston would like that.  Walking in,I thought I heard Mrs Gutekunst his secretary asking what it was I wanted. I wanted nothing more than to pause and recall again Pappy Whitehurst and the chapel in his wifes honor, Dutch Fisher of Berry, Kentucky loving his Cincinnati Reds, leading singing at my fathers early revivals, Bishop John Branscomb of who I was named, Dr  Zachary Taylor Johnson, the great friend and college President of Asbury, Rev Paul Stoneking his best college friend, hold Bobo our dog in Monticello again, see Goliath beneath the desk, hear the IBM selectric with the ball font  humming a letter, recall Methodist Bishop Joel McDavid's visit, the Spradlins of Boyd, his first church, see the photo of his first deer in the Apalachcola forest with Moody Pearce of Crawfordville, Lewis winning the Levy Bicentinnal logo contest and read again the greatest story ever told I illustrated one Christmas for my father, making it to the highest point upon the now empty office wall. But the rotary phone rings, no, its the iphone and I have lingered too long and we must....we must....always we must.

Ten Years After

 Ten Years After

Johnclarestokes 

Alvin Lee I would listen to

going home, to see my baby

I'd love to change the world

Everywhere freaks and fairies

We thought yesterday 

Back to two oh thirteen

and before that oh three

and on and on back the 

Ten years after

And how much happened

In the last Ten Years After

And wondered what could

Possibly happen in the next

Ten Years Coming.

Old Town life

 Old Town life

Johnclarestokes 

And what of this old life?

Waters paddled upon

Rivers crooked and long

Some we've been upon

Many, many a time

Others never to see

Only in dream

In our Old Town journey

Post abiden

 abiden

John Clare Stokes 

in the latter years, came the cankerous men, burning, creating wastelands, removing the old landmarks, swarming, ravenous as locusts, wandering, devouring, in the aftermath, the drought came, in the parched wail, birthing, a new world, disordered, discordant, disconnected, decadent.

Bless the Zinnias

 Bless the Zinnia's

by Johnclarestokes 

Father I trust you will forgive me

For they were Dollar General Zinnias

Four packs for a mere dollar

And I am not even sure

If I can get them to grow

the way they would for you,

Even though from far,far away

the seeds you'd let me spread,

little colored buttons soon opening

to sauce pan size growing,

and we would gather up a bouquet

upon the altar bowing as you prayed

the repentant would kneel near

the zinnias between you and their tears

watering them

perhaps revealing why

the zinnias grew so greatly.

Oh father

bless from on high

the dollar general zinnias

with my efforts be pleased.

Ernest Stokes, father of Luther Stokes in Homewood, Mississippi

Verbenadale

 Verbenadale

Prepare to meet thy God

was a welcome to a remnant

Once beneath this canopy they trod

to bask in the golden glory sent.

Williston, Florida

Lot

Lots

Few are the Lots

Who move on

Without looking back

Forgetting the past

Forging for the future

I'm more the wife

In this life

Incessantly turning

Salt forming upon my

Gazing face

What was

What was

More alluring

Than

What will

What will 

I came to the garden

 I came to the garden

John Clare Stokes

 

In the back yard of Pilgrims Rest at Crawfordville, Florida, the county seat of Wakulla, Rev Luther Ray Stokes, my father,  grew rows of old fashion scuppernong grapes of many varities, HIggins, Fry, Jumbo and others he acquired locally in Wakulla County and through the Stokes, Park and Ison catalogs he always had on hand. Inside this large square arbor, with the three wire fence on which the grapes ran, with pear and persimmon trees for shade, he called the Garden of Rest. Here, over the years he performed several weddings, held a few outdoor meetings of his Evangelistic Association but mostly just to sit and prepare his sermons in the peaceful surroundings. As a boy and young man, I was always in awe of the vast knowledge my father had for growing, for knowing the ways of the animals, the seasons and human nature. Much of what little I know today I acquired from observing my father, from a little boy atop his workshop bench in Sopchoppy to a young man trying as best I could to emulate his ways on how to drive the tractor, when to plant or how to decipher his sometimes exasperated instructions I wasn’t getting. He liked to give nicknames to those he was endeared to and I can recall his calling for "Jumpy" to come sit with him in the garden of rest....

Jumpy was me and I’d give anything to still have that Garden of Rest today to return to and just sit a spell in the cool of a Wakulla morning, of course, while the dew is still on the scuppernongs.

Luther’s Lilies

 Luther's Lilies

John Clare Stokes 

along the edge of the path

under the shade of the oak

the lilies planted by Luther Stokes

pose for their photograph.

come the sultry days of june

when low the spirit sinks

among Luther's lilies i think

and soon i lift a tune.

Thank you Luther for your love

you gave to me for the lilies

the overwhelming created beauty

I send my thanks to you above.

Old Homewood

 Ole Homewood

Johnclarestokes 

My father first began growing and making sugar cane syrup in the mid seventies after acquiring from Wakulla County farmers the necessary implements,the old Golden Mill, the Columbus 60 gallon kettle and various straining tools, one being an old Chevy moon hubcap with holes drilled in it. When we lived in Sopchoppy in the fifties and sixties, we would annually attend the syrup cooking of Bert Rodenberry and Kenneth Strickland who taught my father how to properly cook the syrup, though he already knew much from his growing up on a farm.  He got a local brickmason Mr Dick Snyder,  to make his first chimney and kettle holder in what we called the sugar shack, a little cabin built around the kettle with a bath,kitchen and bedroom where we spent much of our time heated by the old wood stove. He called his syrup, Old Homewood, after the town in Scott County Mississippi where he was born and raised. I drew up some labels for the wild turkey and store bought bottles. With the help of the trusty Gravely tractor rigged on the cross beam to stay locked in a turning direction, it was up to the children and grandchildren and various relatives and friends to feed the stalks of cane into the mill, remembering sometimes not to duck each time the pole came around, giving all a laugh at their expense. It was our annual tradition at Thanksgiving to cook down the cane juice in the 60 gallon kettle to about ten gallons of syrup, the process usually finishing around noon where mamma and the girls usually had the tables under the trees ready for wonderful eating. It was always a tense and sometimes testy moment just before the kerosene fire from the rabbit box burner was turned off and the boiling came to an end. Too long and the syrup would be full of black flecks or dregs, too soon and it would not have the right consistency. Knowing when to dip the syrup out at the precise specific gravity from the hydrometer, usually around 16 we used to measure the syrup, or when the syrup candied when spilling off the dipper was  often a hit and miss experiment. I still have several bottles of Old Homewood and tell myself, someday I will set up the Golden mill, which I recently did in the back yard after my father passed away in March of 2011, leaving it all to me, but it is looking more and more like this tradition may have died when my father did in Williston. I hope not.

Feast of Lona

 Feast of Lona

Over the valley descended legions of dragonflies

Sent forth to part the Skeeter cloud

Throughout the fields came curdling cries

The reign of blood vanquished from the skies.

Parsing through the crimson sea of carnage

Grateful on this field for their merciful deed

Who could discern the Master's hand?

How His dragoons today would feed.

Eek from the crumbs below the tables

Upon the heights over the finest gables

Fly the armies of Lazarus above fertile ground

Deaf to pleas to please send a prophet down.

Not even the dogs lingered to lick the wounds

As the streams to Lona leeched a dull red

The dragonfly bands obscuring a waning moon

As the host of heaven from Lona were led. 

l

Post a cat

 I find it a reality

Unless it’s a photo 

Of a kitty

Or a puppy

People don’t give

A crap for poetry

Or anything 

That isn’t 

Vinnie

Ruby 

Winka

Roscoe