John Clare Stokes
Revive again the recalled when
Revive again the autumn cane grinding
Revive again the low smoke wafting
Revive again the glad homecoming
Send again the wide open screen
Send again the sound of children
Send again the halcyon scene
Send again the life that sings
John Clare Stokes
All our days we suffered the George’s, my fathers friend from college, a fellow pastor from Quincy, Lawrence and his wife and son and daughter. The entire family had the affliction of what we have, do, think is better than you, yours, theirs. It was bad enough that even mamma, one without an unkind word, let us know. That bad.
One Thanksgiving I decided without premeditation to pull a trick on Wesley the son of Lawrence. We went hunting behind the camp in Gulf Hammock Thanksgiving morning and spotted an armadillo. It was there I decided to appeal to his ego. I told Wes it was prized in the camp, akin to a deer, please let me shoot it. Naturally his I’m superior personality wouldn’t allow it and he shot it. Please let me carry it into camp. Nothing doing. So he marched into camp beaming and carried it over to Mr Duane cooking on the bed spring grill.
Mr Fugate promptly said, boy, get that nasty critter out of here! It pleased me greatly to see the look on his face. Mamma would have smiled at that one.
john clare
And in the end
It was just our
Reflection in the
Bargain art
The kind that
Adorns the
Corridors of the
Aged
Beyond the budget
Of original
Given to the
Greater need of
Depends and
Bed pans
Needs of body
At expense of
Souls
With the prime lens
We looked long
At the image
imagining ourselves
Before
Steichens
Atget's
Bourke-Whites
Soon the creak
Of wheel chairs
Came
And we slipped out
Of the frame
Bargain art
Again.
john clare
If trees could talk
They wouldn't
Why should they?
What would they
Tell you?
Leave me alone
Long after you
Are gone
I'll still be here
Listening to
Another jabbering
Like some pileated
On my bark
Enough
I do not talk
Quit wishing I would.
Without the exotic prime lens to make the subject more a sharp scientific study worthy of a Stokes Bird Guide, It becomes concentration upon composition and surrounding scenery. I’m not sure in the identification of the warbler, it really isn’t important, it’s not going in the Guide Book.
D850 with 70-300 lens
I’ve written on another page, the many Thanksgivings there have been, and how I loved all of them, from shooting the turkey with daddy in the woods of Sopchoppy, to the two story in Monticello and the duplex in Wilmore, Kentucky with my Uncles and mothers mamma, to Williston and Gulf Hammock camp C to our family making syrup in Crawfordville and Williston. Today we travel to Alabama with Melanies mother for our first Thanksgiving there. So many in the family now gone, estranged and out of range gathering again.
I am sure it’s the same in all our Thanksgivings.
Standing still where once two exchanged vows
Downstream the three white tail were crossing
Into the woods they went after awhile
I do I do rippling with every pebble tossing.
Often I journey down to Pounds
To hear perhaps the turkey sounds
But mostly it’s silence that surrounds
But no better place I find is found.
Born from night to light of day
The Monarch emerged on time
It’s all in the Creators wondrous way
From the fire perfection refine.
Through the blue straits
Through the blue straits
Unaware we exist within a scene
So many are the compositions passing by
Never wake me from this dream
