smoke crossing

 Smoke crossing

John Clare Stokes

The smoke was in no particular haste

wafting low and hazily across the way

I was in no particular hurry

So I waited as it made its way toward 

Olustee

I thought perhaps I’d follow his trail

see from where he was dwelling

perhaps the embers could yet be stoked

and we could again visit with the smoke

But the boys were now grown and gone

Just this old man in piney woods alone

No, don’t follow that trail down to the shore

Let it go, let it go, before it begins to whirl.

Rock of Wades

 Rock of wades

Long ago the infant was placed in the little Jon boat with his mother and father, and he began his first drift downstream. But the shear pin of the little motor caused the propeller to spin, so the father pulled them back upstream. Years later the boy returned to the site to wade into the river and marry, carrying his bride upstream, breaking the shear pins from his mother and father, as they drifted down stream.

Po Camp Air B&B

 Po  Camp

We are happy to announce the soon opening of Po Camp. For one gloriously miserable week sans all the amenities your children are accustomed to, we hope to instill in them, a sense of having nothing. 

No longer will they ignore you while engrossed in the I-things when you say, Buffy, did you walk the Puffy poo? No longer will they embarrass you in front of the grandparents when they say, mommy, why do they drive the used Beamer? This list is endless, but you get the picture.

Homewood Hymn

 Homewood Hymn

John Clare Stokes

Behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.  Isaiah 5:30b

Does a new day bring light?

Has the light swallowed the dark?

Come day a squint into bright

The beams still painfully sharp.

On goes the gauze again

In streams the soothing dark

Not ready to walk in gleams

of light beams deadly sharp

Many meant for the night

Few called to walk wide waking

Freed from the terrible fright 

Always giving, never once taking 

In countless wards the halt

The little wars raging on

Light brigades assault for naught 

the darkness ever so strong 

Allured to the prospect of sight

We wave the white flag and stare

into the blinding beams of night

as captured we fall into the lair

Hand on shoulder on shoulder on

the line of the lame snakes along 

Til all glimmers are finally gone

No one remaining to recall home

And in the darkened chapel quiet

Faint songs from opened hymns

A remnant chants into the night

Stokes the embers and remembers 

Homewood and all of them.

The beauty of the lily

 The beauty of the lily

Not all the latest greatest is necessary. This was taken with my first DSLR, the Nikon D40 with my 1984 180 2.8.

Any particular time

 Any particular time

John Clare Stokes

Is there any particular time

When not upon the cusp of crying?

At the time of the lilies bending

The weight of blooming sending

Them downward

At the movement of clouds over

The fields with the wind whipped 

Corn clinging in unison 

At the call of the Coopers hawk

Circling then landing in the tallest

Pine 

Looking for the jesses he wore

When in captivity

Paying no mind to the crying lad

Below

In finderland

 In finderland 

John Clare Stokes

There is a place where we can go

Into a place where we can make the

way to our own liking, where light

can be courted and in unison dance

When I am in finderland

with the old manual ways before me

I think I shall never return to the

rabid way of the autobum.

Wano

 Landon more in a state of shock after the nose piercing. It is considered a high honor and forever identifies Landon with this Wano tribe in the high mountains of Papua, New Guinea.

Queen of Lodi

Then landed Pashtun

Queen of the Lodi race

Ancient alien beings

Fluent in the Dari dialect

To serve man their message

Didn't matter, fried or baked.

 White Springs

Baptist Sing

Virginia Williams and Paul Beauchamp 

To have the mark of grace

The one unlovely embrace

Blind to measuring their worth

Decreasing in self always first

Humility present unknowing

Love for others growing.

In day present past

In days present past

John Clare Stokes

We thought our works would last

The bold colors so lovingly applied

But oh how the hues did subside 

to white canvas of a double coated past. 

No honor

 Coffee tabled 

It was interesting, I took a copy down for the relatives to see the photographs and story, how one, even with me opening to the page of the story, had no interest, and said, I’ll look later. 

Goes to show, a photographer is not even a photographer among his own, or something to that affect. You can lead a donkey to water but he has to drink? Don’t show your prints before three glasses of wine?