In the sweet bye

 In the sweet bye

This past December Roscoe and I traveled down to Williston, Raleigh to be exact, to get some seed cane from Jack Whitehurst. Jack along with his twin brother Bill and sister Harriet were the first people we met when we rolled in from Wilmore, Kentucky that June day in 1967. They had brought us watermelons to welcome us as the Preacher family of the First United Methodist Church. I told mamma that day, there are two men at the door. When I learned they were in my class of 1973, I kind of was concerned for my diminutive size. Their size later that year turned to my benefit when they opened wide gaps for the number 40 halfback to make long hauls on the JV football team.

Those were such great years with Pappy Whitehurst and my father being such friends, along with Elliot, Bill and Dan and their children.

I loaded the cane that day and looked forward to this November returning to Williston where Jack hoped to cook his own syrup, at least building a shed for the kettle and setting up the mill. I had last year finally set up my fathers Goldens Mill and had planned to squeeze the juice and take it down to add. 

Saturday I was in Williston for the funeral of a family friend Tommy Brazeal and I sat by Jacks brother Bill and wife Cindie. 

He said he’d tell Jack he saw me and would let me know where the cooking was taking place.

Today Bill messaged me to say Jack passed away that same Saturday around 6pm.

The cane is now all the more special than before, as is the bottle of syrup he and Charlene gave me. 

In the sweet bye and bye

We shall meet by that beautiful gold cooking.

That we may eat

 That we may eat

There are sad scriptures. One of those is Numbers 11:13. Give us flesh, that we may eat. The manna from heaven did not suffice. They cried for meat, and meat they got, running out their nostrils.

Longer Boats

 Longer boats

31/Atlas

There were boats bobbing

in the bay of Panacea

I’m not certain the kind

Stevens sang of

Possibly dreams of aliens

Possibly the type Wallace

wrote of

I don’t know why Mary

dropped her pants

in the sand

let a parson come and take

her hand

From a child there has been

a longing

for the boats

for the deep sea out from

Panacea.

Levels

 Levels

John Clare Stokes

Mine has been a life of levels

Of sometimes being on  the

 highest point 

To view the horizon

Of dwelling below the tree line

Of doing my dead level best

To capture the rising whether

It be sun, or water or fire

Of finding comfort in the dwelling 

in the lower 

levels only left behind for the

metoroic climb 

the lone dweller from the lower level

A seeing Helen Adams Keller

Telling those who were searching

that Orion can be best seen from the deepest well

And not atop this sun drenched hill.

Big Shoals

Suwannee River when low

Bye bye

Bye bye Miss American pie

Drove my Chevy Nova in Levy

But the water tower was dry

And good ole Williston boys 

Were drinking whiskey and rye

Singing this will be the place that

 I die.  

The wild child

 Wild Child

John Clare Stokes 

After Yeats the Stolen Child 

By the bank beneath the broken sign

By the boat beside the fishing dock

There ran the wild child by the shore

The wild child that mother forgot

By the lodge lounging at the bar

By the downing of another shot

There ran the wild child by the door

The wild child that father forgot

By the asphalt cracked unmarked

By the dumpster beside this lot  

There ran the wild child by the parked

The wild child that brother forgot 

By the time we called out for her

By the time she left our spot 

There ran the wild child but a blur 

The wild child that sister forgot.

By the tree stand by the Range

By the trail the creature was shot

There ran the wild child so strange

The wild child we all forgot.

The sting

 The sting

In the midst of the birthing 

Always lurking the sting 

Whispering, your dyings coming

Clinging, to the promise given

Not so, not so, o sting.

A poem

 A poem

is when you have the sky in your mouth.

It is hot like fresh bread,

when you eat it,

a little is always left over.

A poem

is when you hear

the heartbeat of a stone,

when words beat their wings.

It is a song sung in a cage.

A poem

is words turned upside down

and suddenly!

the world is new.

~ Jean-Pierre Simeón (from the book This Is a Poem That Heals Fish

Foolish Pleasures

 Wild the Mare

John Clare Stokes

 In Williston sand longing

to conceive in

A field of record yields 

Beneath a September rising and falling over and again

The burrowing owl came 

From below eyes wide open

To the commotion turning

Totally around as if looking back was acceptable while upon the hill in the stable

Kicking against the stall

The wild mares mane trembled from the rising and

The falling

Wanting so desperately to

Join the conception 

Bringing record yields

In fields under cover of night

While in far away Kentucky

Came the one

They would call

 Foolish Pleasure

Conceived amid owls and sandy legumes galore

To gain glory in a derby

Far from the wild mare

Kicking desperately.

Path of most resistance

Beyond the Blue Blaze

Every hike is usually from blaze to blaze, following the well trodden way. There are times, when water is low and the blaze not clear, we dare venture beyond the blue blaze, to find perchance, a path of great resistance with wonders never known.

 

Road Side Song

 In every roadside ditch the throng 

of bloom and blossom lifts in song

Humbly with exuberant praise lifting

To this wondrous life His gift

Speed on to the byway of praise 

Head on toward the eternal day

Blazing Stars beneath cobalt heaven 

Swaying grass we in a moment given

So Praise! praise! All creatures sing

Lift up! Lift up! Too soon to wing!

In Kerwin Country

 Moonball 

It was a rather disconcerting event

And I do not think I was meant

To witness it

But upon the rising down Mallory 

Swamp way

The dead oak took the sap

And began to toss back and forth

A hapless moon.