The Word

 One word

Prodigals

Like the ole farmer before morning dawn

The poet quietly went about his orisons

Searching pastures for those not returning home

Setting out provision for the anticipated coming

For words and images were important

Even if the congregation was but few

He could not force any to the nourishment

Convince any that manna was in dew

It's always been the way of the givers

Always the way of the prodigal wanderers 

Starved upon the husks of the swine

Provision before them of water to wine.

Lost shoals

 He tracked the three patiently

For he was hungry

Come late night fall

To the campfire he did crawl

By dawn's early red canoe

They only found two

So if you make it through Suwannee Shoals

Better pack Jack Links I'm told....

Steichen

 Steichen

Old Steichen was

Losing his mind

Never knowing 

Once in time past 

It was him who made

The memories last

By some quirk in the

Wheel with every third

Revolution it would click

Akin to a sound distant

He vaguely recalled

Some days when Steichen

Was in a good frame of mind

He would click the wheels

Like a motor winder 

Not pausing or even 

Contemplating direction

Other days in more the 

Pensive melancholic mood

He would slowly click then

Look

Look then click the wheel

Smiling at the capturing

A foot entering the frame

An orderly passing

The pattern of shadow on 

Carpet

It was the unknown click

In that wheel that kept

Steichen from totally 

Becoming lost in this

Place.

Monticello

Third grade and life to me seemed at an end when we moved from Sopchoppy to Monticello. But it turned out to really get no better with my best friends Hunter and Marc, my mother our Cub Scout den leader and painting lessons with Mrs Cy Groves to boot....

My first basketball game scoring 3 points, Sending a note to Deborah Daniel’s that Mrs Floyd intercepted, staying in class with Wayne Lassiter drawing instead of PE, outrunning the Haines boy for the fastest kid in third grade. 

Divine Appointments

 Daily you are given Divine appointments, it is up to you 

To recognize them and redeem them.

Not every encounter will be of woman at the well magnitude, most will simply be lifting moments, acknowledging moments, affirming moments. Minuscule from your perspective but of mighty significance from His.

Let us labor

 Let us labor

Johnclarestokes 

I think of those now gone on

Some to eternal worlds

Others yet remaining here 

And I’m ever grateful for their labors

In the kingdom not of calloused hands

Men as ZT Johnson of Asbury 

Who helped usher me into the kingdom

A father, Luther Ray, who welcomed me

At the altar of repentance 

There were many following

Razziel at Florida Southern my brother

Mentoring me so lovingly

A long chain of laborers 

From Russell and a community praying

Melanie back to us

To Aaron singing softly to a dying mother

Touching beyond knowing this

Heart prone to hardening

So grateful for the workers in the vineyard 

So looking forward to drinking in

The fruits of their labors one day.

ZT Johnson, President of Asbury College with Rev Luther Ray Stokes and Bert Roddenberry at his farm in Sopchoppy, Florida.

To the limp bend

To the bend

Johnclarestokes 

Old Town Chipewan trimmed

Paddles poised in remember 

For tonight from shiver to timber

We stroke upstream to forgetting 

From Cone pylons to Limp bend mystery

Our journey quietly wends

Suwannee time suspends

Sand bars all open

Full moon all enveloping 

Tupelo tonic mixes with the tannic

A doe dips low for a taste

Barred owls who do you think

Pileated's pine bark rain falls

Coyotes call on the prowl

Wet wood hisses and growls

Soon by firefly light we sleep

To mares of critters creeping 

By dawns dew prints revealing

Pungent fresh the nocturnal fumes

Stoke the embers to live

Coax it to warmth give 

All is misty in the limp bend

By first light the Suwannee

Amnesia begins.

Read the one of the ocean

 Read to me again

John Clare Stokes

What possible good was I

The aged poet called to her side

One of her end of days requests

Made no doubt in mad duress

What would she reveal

Would she tell of love in secrecy

Of trips to the beach by darkness

When all the world was sleeping

The setting moon, the rising sun

It knew us

A few starfish too

But that was about all

Holding the frail, withered hand

Warmth as of old still in the veins

The writing once so eloquent 

The touch so tender

Parting the old, old friend

To my ear she began whispering

The dying words of a lover

Read to me again

Our poem of the ocean.

First mural

 John 's painting is still on the wall of the Living By Faith Sunday school room. I assume now, as this was 2017.

Sand tides abide

 For every horizon...For every prayer...For Kingdoms to come...For those who knelt there.

Souls and shoals

 The souls that have crossed the shoals....we gather by the banks....and give thanks....for the souls crossed over the shoals....their presence lingers...as does the foam...and then into the shoals to home....and we remember.