Pause

 A pause upon the bridge at Alligator

When crossing the bridge to pause

Search for trolls and creatures below

Bridges are good our pace to slow

Soon enough the long trail calls.

Trail head

 Trail head

These days of lament we keep our distance 

Each in our own world we exist

The scenes only seen by me alone

Pause until between us distance grown.

A welcome spire

 A welcome spire

Never do I tire looking toward the spire

For atop the steeple is a cross

For when the sin rampant and I tire

I claim alone His cost.

Home in Mayo

 What is it of November?

Of the old place I remember

That Sandhill song draws

and to the home place it calls. 

In the garden of the greens

 God said, walk with me in my garden,

I bet you didn’t know I was decidedly Southron 

Why else do you think I created collard greens?

and cane syrup to boot for

cold frosty morns. 

Thigpen

 Old Thigpen had Christmas up always early

It wasn’t plastic and tacky tinsel inside

No, it was by the back door for Santa to see

Merry and bright with his smile so wide. 

Gathering

 i heard there was a gathering...of the Stokes family..they said Billy Ferrell was there...Curt and Grace,Marzell and Luther too...even Irene, Hazel, Joe and Parks....i do not know why i missed that eighty-three reunion....i would have liked to have been there...to see William Clark in yellow...Jimmy in the matched socks...Clara such a mountain beauty...Rose and Barbara equally....that baby and wife of Billy...the child hiding behind Jimmy...Luther Ray what ever distracted thee?

What to remember

 What to remember

Aurelia D Wallace

Woman remembers the yearning, not the getting.

Man remembers the gift, not the giving.

Babe remembers the sucking, not the breast.

I remember the living, not the dead.

Tomb remembers the dead, not the living.

Governments count the fed, not the starving.

Child remembers the answer, not the calling.

Rain remembers the sky, not the falling.

Tide remembers the shore, not the rising.

I remember the living, not the dying.

Iris Jeanette Pueschel

Timing

 Timing

I really dislike how

In this life

Our timing is so off

When my grandfathers 

were in their prime

I was just entering

Didn’t really know them

Sketchy at best

Just a few summer days

with them

Then they were gone on

And so it is with

So many others

A day 

A week 

A month with some

One

Two 

Years 

And we part

I’m not certain 

But it would be nice

In eternity if the timing 

Wasn’t off 

But then 

It’s not earth

And it probably is a thing

We will not recall

Sopchoppy Thanksgiving

 A Sopchoppy Thanksgiving

It was the early sixties. I was around seven. It was before you went to the store and bought your butterball turkey. It is was Thanksgiving morning and we were going hunting. We went to Bert Roddenberry's farm, beautiful Wakulla bottom land where years later Joe Hutto would do his study of living with a flock of turkey. He told of the time with the turkey in the book Illumination in the flatwoods and later a PBS movie, My time with the turkey.

Daddy had his Parker double barrel 12 gauge with the ornately engraved barrels. It was given to him by a friend,Everett “Dutch” Fisher in Boyd,Kentucky while he was student preaching there.

We walked along the Creek bottoms listening and looking for signs. I knew not exactly what, deer or turkey, maybe black bear. 

We came to a rise and daddy motioned me to be still. I do remember the time he let me shoot the gun, him holding it behind me, for the recoil would have knocked me flat.

I don’t recall if this was the time but we took aim at a turkey and to our delight hit it. We gathered it up and after showing Mr. Bert, took it home to dress it out. Daddy saved the legs for desk ornaments and the beard.

Upon dressing it mamma baked it and that Thanksgiving day we enjoyed the dinner we bought home.

Verbenadale

 Verbenadale....

perhaps the place of destination for me in the Lost in Levy is to the once vibrantly alive in old time gospel worship...the community church of Verbenadale. With each visit, the encroaching and eminent collapse draws nearer. This visit found someone posting no trespassing signs all about, in an effort to let the church building die in peace I suppose, keeping those who would pull a board or drape for memory sake. It looks as if the end is destined, that who ever owns the little church has no intention of restoring it. It has always been a source of consternation with me, that those with the funds, who hold these treasures in their grips, let them slip away, while we without, stand beyond the trespass line and watch. This is repeated over and over, with a little church at my home in Lake City, historical in value, used as a hay barn, no concern beyond feeding of the cattle.  We did not linger long here today. The sun had already passed from its walls and on toward Otis Bells place it set, somewhere behind the Harris home and gone.

Star carrier

 Star Carrier

john clare 

And from the blackness of darkness reserved forever

From the shadows of Remphan

Emerged a mysterious figure

Carrying in his right hand a star

And LO, this star which he held, went before him and came to

Rest where a young child lay.

And we redeemed

From Remphan rejoiced

Our wandering ceased

As he set his day star beside 

This child to arise within 

Our hearts.