sir Lance a not
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Jude cloud
Thus cumulus prayed, I do not want to be a cloud without water, carried about of the wind
Ada and Elsie
Ada and Elsie
Johnclarestokes
The day was drawing to a frenetic close
the miles of repeated pines to never end,
low on fuel, how far must this forest go?
when up ahead, a single bulb flickering.
Turning into the lone, little gas station store,
the elderly lady rose from her rocking chair,
“we don’t see many travelers in Needmore,
mostly they are rushing past going elsewhere.”
While the gallons rang, she told of her life,
tales of bee gums sweet upon Deep Creeks,
of her long departed husband courting her,
the marriage at Oak Grove, the kiss on the cheek.
She could have left this forgotten little stop
and moved down to Lake Cities grandeur,
but she and Elsie chose to remain by the blacktop
telling her stories to the passers in obscurity.
Slowly lowering the handle of the Supreme,
as the mysterious lady settled into her rock,
a desperate longing to linger in this remote dream
where the weary heading elsewhere seldom stop.
Later that night, they had to stop at another station
the needle on the gauge read below low,
“Why didn’t we just fill up back in Needmore?”
“Needmore?” the attendant said, “Why Mrs Ada
and Elsie closed that station over twenty years ago.”
To the memory of John Raleigh and Ada Alford Hall and their daughter Vera Elsie Hall who took over after them.
Wagon days
Wagon Days
Johnclarestokes
In its day it was a sedan...a convertible...a van...a pick up.... all rolled into one...Harness the Ox and it was a mud bogger....Harness the horse and it was a stock car...Harness the stubborn mule and with your gal beside you...A convenient explanation why you stayed out so late....
Maude Grays wagon in the barn now gone
How neatly
How neatly
The poetry
Poetry
Is best left beside you
Not neatly arranged
On the shelf
Out of easy reach
Scattered and askance
For when the call
From Emily with Wallace
Comes
One does not want
To hastily arise
And untidy
The home.
A gift meant for another
Lies within the clutch
Awaiting the delivery
One must not covet
Or even in your haste
Of life
Forget the languishing
Gift
As another
For whom it’s meant
Perhaps teeters upon
The edge of
Tottering.
Beautiful
Just tell me
Everything beautiful
Beautiful dream
You’re beautiful
Oh beautiful for spacious skies
Everything is beautiful
In its own way
Think on these things
Road less Crowder
The road less Crowder
Spring tangles shadow and light,
Branches of trees
Knit vision and wind.
The shape of the wind is a tree
Bending, spilling it’s birds.
From the cloud to the stone
The rain stands tall,
Columned into his darkness.
The church hill heals our father in.
Our remembering moves from a different place.
Eulogy
Wendell Berry
Hoyle F Crowder Sr
1947
July 10, 2018
Ada and Elisie
Ada and Elsie
Johnclarestokes
The day was drawing to a frenetic close
the miles of repeated pines to never end,
low on fuel, how far must this forest go?
when up ahead, a single bulb flickering.
Turning into the lone, little gas station store,
the elderly lady rose from her rocking chair,
“we don’t see many travelers in Needmore,
mostly they are rushing past going elsewhere.”
While the gallons rang, she told of her life,
tales of bee gums sweet upon Deep Creeks,
of her long departed husband courting her,
the marriage at Oak Grove, the kiss on the cheek.
She could have left this forgotten little stop
and moved down to Lake Cities grandeur,
but she and Elsie chose to remain by the blacktop
telling her stories to the passers in obscurity.
Slowly lowering the handle of the Supreme,
as the mysterious lady settled into her rock,
a desperate longing to linger in this remote dream
where the weary heading elsewhere seldom stop.
Later that night, they had to stop at another station
the needle on the gauge read below low,
“Why didn’t we just fill up back in Needmore?”
“Needmore?” the attendant said, “Why Mrs Ada
and Elsie closed that station over twenty years ago.”
To the memory of John Raleigh and Ada Alford Hall and their daughter Vera Elsie Hall who took over after them.
Heavenly Atlantis
Heavenly Atlantis
Johnclarestokes
this was written in 2011 on the eve of the Space Shuttles final voyage and on the now 52nd anniversary of landing upon the moon.
Soon Atlantis sounds her final sonic boom
as dark side of the moon landings revert
to a memory of history,
our dreams crashing upon the globe of gloom,
dimming vision down to an earth bound misery.
Will they have perished in vain?
The Flash Gordon’s who pierced the stratosphere,
the latter-day Elijah’s who in their fiery chariots came,
to give the huddled masses something to cheer.
To drink from the fountains of a Milky Way,
fathom first hand the cradle of the celestial dawn,
embrace if but for a moment creations day,
compose from the Martian Sea a new song.
Far beyond the life of today’s narrow men,
a Galileo shall rise and point to the skies,
to heavenly Atlantis we must sail again!
As a gleam returns to the shrouded eyes.
Conversation Chait
The Conversation Chair
John Clare Stokes
Each time happening upon a steel conversation chair
I pause to listen as those who long passed speak
Where words last left off seems merely a week
Catching again these conversations from the chair.
It’s in the old steel the conversation comes
Mysteriously transmitted from the living past
Memories transforming to spoken words passed
The moments spent with them most comforting
Tell me again red conversation chair
The love we knew so strong for so long
Where tell me have your words gone
Lift breeze to steel tell me you’re near.
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Green and gone
Greens and creature
Not sure what the red shouldered clutched in the pine needles as I barely had time to shoot as he flew off the wire.
It’s Art?
Boy, don’t I look swell in my Art Wolfe Radar Cap?
Now, if only I could shoot like the Wolfe!
Smitten
And he did smite the rock
from which the water flowed
another we knew smitten
from which blood flowed
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