Sad smoke

Sad Smoke

John Clare Stokes

Whatever came of our little lad

Whenever we made a fire outside

He was always there by our side

His pitch fork stabbing the pine straw

Watching the white smoke

Happily consuming it all.

This evening we burned a pine pile

On the hill

It was a good day with an 

Autumn chill

But something was amiss 

With the fire

It kept wafting low toward

The back porch door

Searching we were sure 

For the little boy

As so I finally stuck his pitch fork

Next to mine

On the hill

And for the moment

Lured the sad smoke back.

Orange Hill Hymn

 Orange Hill Hymn

John Clare Stokes

A tree that has long moved me is atop Orange Hill Cemetery in Williston, Fla, place where so many of my loved ones and friends rest from their battles, their struggles, their quest to find the light amid this present darkness.

The poem is dedicated to our common battle.

Does a new day bring light?

Has the light swallowed the dark?

Come day a squint into bright

The beams still painfully sharp.

On goes the gauze again

In streams the soothing dark

Not ready to walk in gleams

of light beams deadly sharp.

Many meant for the night

Few called to walk wide waking

Freed from the terrible fright

Always giving, never once taking.

In countless wards the halt

The little wars raging on

Light brigades assault for naught

the darkness ever so strong.

Allured to the prospect of sight

We wave the truce flag and stare

into the blinding beams of night

as captured we fall into the lair.

Hand on shoulder on shoulder on

the line of the lame snakes along

Til all glimmers are finally gone

No one remaining to recall home.

And on the Orange Hill quiet

Faint strains from old hymns

A remnant chants into the night

Pulls the weeds and remembers

Pearl and all of them

Awaiting.

Don’t call common

 Common and unclean

John Clare Stokes

You can imagine

The chagrin

Of the butterflies

Lowering the swing

Not so my Lord

I am too old to 

Imagine

And the butterflies

Raised the swing

Again they lowered

The swing

Not so my Lord

For I am grown

I do not swing

It was then

I heard a voice

Do not call what I

Have declared

Imaginative playing

Something

Common and 

Above your

Aging

Misty orisons

 The moon orisons

Misty were my morning orisons

the theme this orb adrift

If not for the ordered ordained spin

These spirits would never lift.

Wonder pony

 Wonder Pony

I had a marvelous life with

Wonder Pony

When I first got him as a

Toddler in

Sopchoppy 

I could barely reach his 

Springs 

And his fierce rocking 

Scared me

Eventually he let me sit

Upon his hard plastic

Saddle

My feet upon the wooden

Stirrups

Soon we were riding all out

Dipping nearly to the

Floor

Springing back nearly

Toppling 

Wasn't long we were

Leaping lines

Clearing them

Every time

He can still clear them

Sixty years since just like

The first time we did

I outgrew the pony

But not the wonder

Within.

A tenuous beauty

 A tenuous beauty

The Virginia Meadow Beauty grows upon an exposed rock of Big Shoals from low water levels.

Grace greater

 Greater Grace

It was the day of my fathers funeral. We were out at the graveside on Orange Hill, March of 2011 in Williston. I was to play a hymn on the harmonica. As I listened to pastors Joe Smith then Wes Smith, my time drew nearer. I did not have a hymn. I asked silently for an answer. It was then, almost as soon as I asked, that Wes inexplicably said, he asked my father one time what his favorite hymn was, and he told him it was Grace greater than our sin. I had the answer. Without practice, I played the hymn.

I think of Him and him whenever it's played, which was today at Christ's Fellowship Baptist.

One comes

 One comes as the sons father

I am sure that you are not unlike me, that when you perform certain tasks, you feel for a fleeting moment, a loved one gone on is near. Come the fall, when I build a fire in the old syrup kettle my father and I once made cane syrup in, he seems to be near, just upon the other side in the beams.

Oaths back

Paths back

In the entering of the path back

One recalls the time of beginning

When extending it seemed such

The never ending journey. 

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.