Fleur flight
At times it’s as if colors are kindred
as the clouds beckoned to the flowers
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Four sure and one
Four sure and one
The winter of sixty-one
Plenty of kindling wood
Sixty-two
Just stubble and briars
Sixty-three
The pictures burned good
Sixty-four
The furniture for fire
Sixty-five
The hearth became our pyre.
On zinnia time
On Zinnia time
John Clare Stokes
Slowly at our own pace
(for we no longer race)
Come the zinnia one by one
with time to watch the glory
climb to another rung.
Can a leaf live
Can a leaf live again
John Clare Stokes
It fell slowly in front of my path
Early for its time in mid summer
Thoughts of our own time left
Who would be in the chosen number
This leaf I took up in hand
Placed it with those who still grew
Then laid it gently upon the sand
Below those it so briefly knew.
One returned
One returned
In my brief internship teaching 7th grade art at Lake Gibson Junior High, perhaps it was the reason I never continued. It was a daily breaking up fights, getting control, doing little actual teaching to the uninterested. And so I ended up in retail. Years later I received a letter and it read,
In all my years in school, you were my favorite teacher of all. It was from Greg who was picked on by the bored.
It made me wish I’d have given teaching another chance for the one who returned.
Against the Wind
Against the Wind
By johnclarestokes
Left to us, we would take the
Wind-aided time,
Eclipsing the record
But then, the mark would not go into the books
The one who ran into the wind
Would win
With an asterisk beside our name
He ran faster than anyone ever did
But it didn't count
The wind is not your friend
If you would coerce him to
Aid your mark
Only those who face the wind
Will count
So turn against the flying banners
And let the records fall
You may never from that podium look
But they will never strike
Your name from the book.
Watercolor by John Clare Stokes
Surely not Andy
Surly Not Andy
by johnclarestokes
Why they tell me that Andy passed away
How can this be?
Why just last night I saw him with Barney
At the desk doing inventory
Then I swear they rode off toward Mt Pilot
with Skippy and Daphne
Helen and Thelma Lou saw them too
Who is left that I now can ask?
Gomer down at Wally's station?
Opie maybe? Goober? Ellie?
So many have left Mayberry.
Well, I am sure they will return soon,
probably just another rumor
started by the girls about the shoe salesman.
Long as the Zenith receives channel eight
Andy I know will never die
and never will Aunt Bea have to cry.
Andy Griffith passed away in 2012. I saw that he had passed away on Facebook and thought I would compose a belated tribute.
No Parking
No parking
Johnclarestokes
Often I wonder
What shall come of us
What home
What place
Shall we end up in
Shall the days spin
In bingo games
Walker aerobics
Bus rides to Walmart
I hope not
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
AMP
I broke my FB silence to post this.
Allison Masten Powers, my sisters first child, the first grandchild of Meme, had a birthday yesterday. Still cute as ever.
Cline and the Coon
Cline and the Coon
A tribute Story written in 2010
John Stokes
Mr Cline Feagle would come into the Sears store on US90 once a month for me to change the battery or bulb out in his large, discontinued Craftsman flashlight. He was always thankful and several times, to keep the light in working order, I would repair the light gratis, scrounging for parts. Upon reading of the passing of Mr Feagle, I was saddened that we would no longer see him coming, often the wrong way on US90!, to have his flashlight fixed.
This story is fictional and is written in his honor, in the tradition of story telling he was so adept at.
Ole Cline Feagle entered the forest of his fathers, flashlight in hand, trusty hound by his side, shining for coons and other critters in the fields he loved. As ole Cline walked deeper into the woods, up ahead he heard the familiar baying of his trusty hound, and followed the sound with his light so bright.
Nearing the base of the largest oak tree he had ever seen, he calmed his hound and shined the light high into the branches above. There, out upon the highest limb, the figure of the largest coon he had ever seen was silhouetted against the starry sky. As he set down his light and aimed his gun, suddenly a blinding light shown all about and he dropped the rifle and staggered back. All grew silent when from the forest deep, a grand figure appeared and beckoned Cline, the hound and the coon to follow.
Walking for what seemed an eternity through the misty bogs, cattle trails and over fence rows, the grand figure with the strange, shining lantern stopped and motioned to follow the path down towards the valley below. With a shaky step, weary from the long journey, Ole Cline now followed his trusty companion as the hound followed the coons tracks. It wasn't long before the hound came to the base of what looked to be the very tree they had started their journey from. This time, upon looking up, he saw the ole coon sitting next to the grand figure in the tree. It was then the grand figure spoke. "Ole Cline, that light has served you well all these years, and your trusty hound too. For tonight, with the use of your light and the trust of your hound, you have been led to the tree of life from which you came so long ago." And with that, Ole Cline and the hound lay down the trusty light and accurate rifle at the base of the old oak and entered with the Coon and the Grand Figure the land where never the light grows dim.
Mr Cline Marion Feagle, 94, passed away on a Monday, May 10, 2010.
He is to this day greatly missed by many and I always look over into the fields while on the Cline Feagle Road and swear I hear the sound of a hound, the beam of a light.
In our own devices
Cognoscenti
When was the last time of significance?
When an infant?
And when you entered the room
All heads turned
All attention focused upon you
Yesterday as we were leaving
Not one head turned
No one followed us out
Save but one
To see us off
It was back to being significant
On our own the devices
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