John Clare Stokes
It was beneath a Mississippi moon
Perchance in the sultry month of June
That Jimmy with his blue tick hounds
Among the Homewood corn was found
For there were coons in there amongst
them as the hounds bayed all at onest
A sweet chorus heard up on Pea Ridge
lovely Kay turning toward the sound
To doze back off, content her Jimmy
Was out among the prized Coon hounds.
John Clare Stokes
I made a bargain with the moon
That I’d sit with him in his morning
setting, if he’d offer me some glow
in the coming night.
So I sat as he sank in a hot blue
but what he failed to tell was
I’d have to sit up til after two
just to get some glow above.
John Clare Stokes
You cannot think yourself some
Yeats or Clare
In love with fairies
In fields of hedgerows lined
Or even imagine
Yourself some Ansel
View camera in tow
Reducing the land into zones
Of tones from white to black
With middle value grey
In between
You will never be the poet
You wish
The fairies he knew you won’t
There are no hedgerows
In this land as Clare knew
Why the landscape is full of color
Contentment in just being you
The greatest attainment.
John Clare Stokes
The time for answers to questions
Has gone
Father could have told us
The name of the dog
Where the home stood
Who gave him the Parker
Or the LCSmith double barrels
What specific gravity
Caused the syrup
To candy
What key opened this lock
How do you make the
Blueberries grow
Somethings are beyond
The google search
And mother
Even before her long term
Memory became fuzzy
catching up
With the short term
And the blank pages
Of her long kept dairy
Questions I should have asked
Instead of just sitting
There in silence
Watching wheel of fortune spin.
Johnclarestokes
And I said to myself
This is a good dirt road
I said I shall long enjoy traveling
Of visiting the living
To hear the stories of old
Then came the dying on Monday
Then the firing on a Thursday
When all of a sudden
All she had time was to
Hug her daughter
Tell her she loved her
All I had time was to
gather my things from the van
and head home
It was a good dirt road
I shall never travel upon it again.
We revisit Bellville, Florida today. The last remaining building that was standing in Bellville many years ago. The general store with the mail drop slot on the bottom right of the board window. The old Bellville Bridge over the Suwannee. I haven't returned here in years, anyone living in the area I would appreciate any history or updates you may have.
I like the rain
At least the plants do more
But all the same
I feel a bit poor
When the moon
I miss behind the cloud
W.B.Yeats
All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out
and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a
lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the
wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in
the deeps of my heart.
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great
to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green
knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made,
like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose
in the deeps of my heart.
Lysle Holden
September 6, 1981
Eve was created a part of Adam
And into history they did grow,
Leaders of Gods great creation
And what they learned is what we know.
They learned that sin has no virtue
Indulgence brings tears of pain,
Evil thoughts in the mind of man
Brings higher pressure in every vein.
The disregard for the word of God
Will lead us down a path so sad,
We will repent, for where we went
With Satan, with a mind half clad.
Gods laws are written on through ten
That guides us all to peace and love,
Where we may find eternal life
The olive branch, and little white dove.
Where the love of God
Feels free to expand,
Like a lovely dream of great extreme
Or aging wrinkles in a hand.
Where we will meet the ones we love
The greatest of all God could find,
Two souls of love and kindness
Two souls with a Christian mind.
So great their patience like the Lord
So great their faith they will endure,
No greater love for all mankind
No greater rememberance for evermore.
Many names live in Gods book of history
Like the acorns grew the mighty oaks,
God has planted two acorns for history
And named them, Clara and Luther Stokes.
Lysle Holden was a poet from Sopchoppy, Florida, a member of my fathers Evangelistic Association. This poem he wrote for my father and mother. I am searching for other poems I have that he wrote.
It’s the only cluster of yellow
It’s the only palm
It’s in a prominent place
Reminds me daily
As I leave
Of the possibility
That there has to be more
More than this route
Daily taken
Fog is out
Obscure the sun
Mute the land
My favorite landscape
Oh to be out in it
Rays defined
Glistening dew
On moored dragonfly wing
Everything
In a suspended waiting
July has bought along its fair share of trials. I find solace in the hummingbirds so far removed from the cares.
