Each day the boy and his Brownie
would set out in wonderment
to see what magical scenes unfolded
before them
and it wasn’t long
I’d say around seven frames
they’d find a cloud beckoning
to rest upon it for the next
Seven wonders to visit them.
John Stokes
Last evening on public broadcasting network they replayed the documentary of Joe Hutto called, My time as a turkey, about his study of a clutch of turkey eggs he incubated, who imprinted on him. The experiment took place in 1991 in the Apalachicola National Forest, near the farm of Burt and Cora Roddenberry in the Mt Beeser Community. It was years earlier, in the early sixties, that on this Thanksgiving morning my father, the late Rev Luther Stokes and I went on a turkey hunt on Burts property by the Deep Branch. It was before the stores sold the butterballs, and when my dad beaded in with his old Parker 12 gauge double-barreled, we knew we would have wild turkey for dinner.
We spent many Sunday's at the Roddenberry's, our favorite time in November when many would gather for his annual cane syrup making. It was from "uncle Burt" that my father learned to make his own syrup, which too later became our tradition on his little farm in Crawfordville called Homewood, after his birthplace in Mississippi. We called our syrup "old Homewood".
In this photo, which my father took, Cora oversees the making of a chicken wire fence around her roses, no doubt to keep the turkey out. My dad was conducting a revival at the Methodist Church he served in Sopchoppy from 1955-1962. His good friend, then President of Asbury College my father and mother attended in Kentucky, Dr Zachary Taylor "ZT" Johnson, is in the background. He was the evangelist. Kneeling with Burt was Lawrence George, his friend from Asbury too, who with his wife, led the singing.
My fathers new blue Dodge DeSoto,
Bought on trade for the old Packard, is in the background.
Today we shall gather and I shall dwell long in those cold deep woods of Wakulla next to my father, then move on over and sit beside him as he stokes the old Homewood fires.
For years it rested in the cool sand beneath the old raised cracker home in Wakulla County, home of Lucille Towles, blind, later owned by my father, now me.
The wood now gone, all that remains is the metal wheel.
I told her
Close your eyes
Click the heels twice
She opened her eyes
Said, why this isn't paradise
I said, my bad
''Tis mine.
John Clare Stokes
Seems the further from the once sharply
defined scene
The more it blends into a dream
The lessons once written in plain
black,white and red
Permeating skin, blood and bone
shaping within the Way herein we
so walk
no longer in the harsh light of law
but in soft beams of grace enveloping.
Corinth Methodist Church
Columbia County
Florida
John Clare Stokes
I stood knee deep in the outgoing tide
I said, take me, as it rushed out to sea
I stood arms outstretched in the wind
I said, take me, joyful in the lifting
I stood upon the rivers edge
I said, take me, as to the gulf it ebbed
I stood in the stream so clear
I said, take me, past the wide eyed deer.
I stood amid the rising smoke,
I said, take me, as through rays it broke
I stood in the shadows growing long
I said, take me, before the light is gone
I stood within the rushing crowd
I said, take me, from clamor loud
I stood in the wide open field
I said, take me, to your bidding I yield
I stood in the Holy presence
I said, take me, and thus began romance.
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.
