O the dry

 Oh the dry, dry rivers

Now flood my memory

We did walk upon waters

He did bid

Come to me!

Don’t run

 Don’t run

Mamma doe said rest here beneath the grapes

Whatever you do, don’t run, I’ll be near by

If it’s time to run, I’ll make a sound of escape

But little fawns are hard of hearing besides

How can I be sure mamma is nearby?

And what if that long black thing is a gun?

What does mamma know?

No, I will run, run, run, run!

Mona Mona

  Avoiding the Mona

She would come to the Gallery

In search of me

Demure, coy smile enticing

It's all for arts sake

Just partake

I'd fall for her lines

Every time

Down with the Mona again.

Last Stands

 Last Stands  

Johnclarestokes  

 On the fields of Trenton far away,

 In the fading fall of sixty-seven,

 From the sky a ball spiraled his way,

 Lost in the vapor lamps under cool heaven.

 In the bleachers of away sat a father,

 Cheering the son on his long route,

 Can this time in young arms gather,

 the falling ball hidden by light?

  Into the end zone of home we reached,

 The clutching of pigskin in outstretched hands,

  A sound arose grander than any sermon preached,

  A father cheering his son from the stands.

  First touchdowns, victories, falling balls,

  So far from the fly route once ran, 

 But the one thing near he still recalls, 

 A fathers voice above the cheers in the stand,

  Way to go John!

The first shall be last

 The First shall be the last 

Johnclarestokes 

My father never wanted to leave Williston FUMC.  But ten years at a Methodist church is a long tenure. It was in the early years of the Charismatic Movement and “preacher” had the audacity to tell the congregation it was fine to raise your hands in praise. It was anathema to some of the more proper Methodists. I am sure there were many other reasons, even down to one boxer named Goliath who guarded the parsonage entrance on the school side. My father was never one to go with the grain. He was called a MethoBab, as he preached hard on sin and repentance with altar calls and not a feel good positive sermonette. This was largely from his early years in the Homewood Methodist as a boy to the Holiness doctrine of Asbury college and seminary. Coming to "First" church of Lake City, I feared the tenure would be short lived and it was. While many of this congregation were of common humility that was the majority, the upper room rulers who held the purse prevailed. It was a two year battle of Fanny Crosby or Bach, of vestal robes or goodwill suits. Of follow the bulletin or the Spirit leading. In the end, the Upper Room won and my dad said enough when the District Superintendent wanted him to locate to Quincy to build their "dead" First church up. Early on my dad got the reputation as a builder.  He opted instead to retire and become an Approved Evangelist of the Methodist conference, taking the Gospel to the small churches who couldn't afford the Ford Philpot Hour evangelists. We moved from the palative parsonage on Evergreen to Mrs Ives home on an unpaved St John's for around 16k and lived on frugal and mamma's Summers elementary salary. I was at Florida Southern during this time, coming back to stay in Lake City in 1979 following graduation. After four years as an Evangelist, my father retired to Crawfordville, then to his beloved Williston where he passed on to Orange Hill in March of 2011.

Eighty six stalks

 Eighty-six stalks 

Johnclarestokes 

We never counted how many sugar cane

stalks it took to make sixty gallons of

juice in the Columbus kettle to boil down

to ten gallons of bottled syrup

We never counted how many turns

it took to squeeze the juice from

the Georgia Red we fed

to fill the five gallon buckets

we poured into the boiling down.

We never counted the years we 

circled the mill on the old Gravely

we didn’t think we had to

It was taken for granted we had time to.

Felco journey

 Felco journey

Johnclarestokes 

I no longer chide the old tools

I pretty much let them rest

They’ve spent more than my life

Pruning, hoeing, sawing away

There are younger, sharper, stronger

tools that can do their job

I know one day the Felco will return

just as the LRS trowel eventually did

Somewhere it’s quietly reminiscent 

of the hands before me that held it

I await the day, the stories he will tell

Of the muscadine arbors where 

he once did dwell.

Warming signs

 Warming signs

For years they dwelt beside the shady road

Kept the front yard swept 

The petunias and posies in the clay pots

Dressed their best for worship down

At the Greater Poplar Springs Missionary

They were good times

Before the naming of the shady road

after Martin Luther King

When in the neighborhood before it

Was a hood the children were good

Minded daddy who was there

There with granny and her husband 

Didn’t need no Lyndon Baines to

Rebuild this great society

But he tried as the old ways died

And so the remnants of how it was

Linger

Exposed for all to see

How warm the hearth used to be.

Night Caller

 Night Caller

In the early hours of the deepest slumber

The little boy was wakened with a whisper

Calling him to come and join their number

It was a whisper once so familiar 

But the little boy was fearful to obey

And told no one of this whispering friend

Lest they chide him as when in vision

He once said he saw angels visiting 

The following evening at the same hour

Came the whispering one only much urgent

We haven’t time to tarry! For you I’m sent

Rise and we shall find the lost moments.

And so the boy arose and he did gladly go

With the night caller all was relived again

There was time with never a moment parting

He knew deeply all the passing scenes

The morning sun awoke him after many years

Was it a life upon lives lived so brief

Whatever it was the whispering one said

Eternity he was certain was but a continuation.

Today the mastery

 Today the mastery

Each day I sit and  to my mind say

This shall be the time I find

Words worthy to say I’ve arrived

At the mastery

That unknown to me in realms

Of hearts I’ve longed to enter

They are melting upon the words

Piercing that impenetrable barrier 

It’s a futile flight of fancy

This brush with love and romance

Things not meant for the entering

With the backstroke of the thumb

Again I come to the edge of mastery

Change it to artistry

Insanity

Anything but mastery

I’m afraid if I arrived

I’d never journey near the sun again.

The slough way

 The slough way

There is a place near the slow flowing Suwannee

Where the sand is white beneath palmetto thick

The track of the turkey and deer converge

beneath the shade of the grand cool mystic 

In the impassible murky beyond the winding creek

The sound of rustling coming in the boggy way

It’s the piney wood rooters passing through

We scurry for a way of safety from the tusky

Up the lazy old oak into the abandoned stand

A pileated is startled to see the form of man

In time the beaded red eyed troop move on

All quiet resumes to consume the slough below

We saunter down not in a particular hurry

Wary lest the moccasin stirred from slumber

Strikes to count us among his number

Sure to follow close the well tracked trail out

Leaving this slough of the denizens of Suwannee

Past the sleeping foot washed ones of Prospect

There was no place upon earth we’d rather be

Than lost in the canopy of the primitive tree.

Tired

 Mighty tired coach 

With the loss

With the loss

With the loss

When was the

Winning season

Never made state

Never will

The third place yellow district ribbon fades 

Perry of PK Young

Forever winning

Winning 

Winning 

The hurdle race