Journey with John Stokes

Monday, December 1, 2025

Spine of Suwannee

Many the time I've seen the old river

Bend low to reveal her curving spine

I cast my eyes from her demure

Knowing floods shall cover her in time.

Hail State

In a State of Hail

Last night I had this best dream ever

All my Stokes relatives were on this school bus

And we were traveling to a Mississippi State football game

And I kept asking are we there yet

And Rose said almost

Then we arrived and began walking toward

Davis Wade Stadium

My Uncle William in his full State outfit

Doing back flips along the way

We came to this playing field and sat

In the bleachers

And I asked, is this it?

And there was Shane, Eric and Jim and

All the Stokes kids playing

With everyone cheering

So I joined right in ringing my cowbell.

Only downside to the dream was along

The bus ride, my cat jumped out the window.

I frantically asked the driver to turn around

But she happily ignored me.

I think that was my Uncle William telling me

Wildcats cheat.

Grandma Stokes

Shoes and shawl that Ethel wore

John Clare Stokes

I like the song Tom T Hall sang on his Songs from Sopchoppy album, Shoes and dress that Alice wore. Several years back, my cousin from Mississippi, Jeanne Bradford Rowland, gifted me with her mother and my fathers mother size 4 shoes, her shawl, dress gloves and a braided lock of her auburn hair. We never knew Ethel Marie Wike, born Jan 28, 1899 and who died sadly on August 1, 1937 at their home in Homewood, Mississippi. My father was only 14 and Aunt Esther Irene 11. Recently the shadow box the items were in was broken by the cats. Yesterday the new and deeper shadow box arrived. I am grateful to Jeanne for keeping her memory alive.

Memory of Mixson

John Clare stokes

Coming to Williston in sixty-seven

That summer this seventh grader

got his first job driving a tractor for

Clifford Mixson in Morriston

After nearly running over him

Teaching me the gears and clutch

Such a patient man

And so I began out Freddie Hale way

Spending all day for a dollar an hour

in the hay field

And at the end of day

I’d pull into the shade

And wait for him

To take me home

And if I broke down

There was no phone

And I’d just sit in the shade all day

In hopes Mixson would come

To check up on me.

A praise

Wendell Berry

His memories lived in the place

like fingers in the rock ledges

like roots. When he died

and his influence entered the air

I said, Let my mind be the earth

of his thought, let his kindness

go ahead of me. Though I do not escape

the history barbed in my flesh,

certain wise movements of his hands,

the turns of his speech

keep with me. His hope of peace

keeps with me in harsh days,

the shell of his breath dimming away

three summers in the earth.

Sunday, November 30, 2025

My demise

Dead men working

I will keep on photographing

Writing so called poetry

Until the day I’m gone

You can find it in the

Middle room

Stacked quite haphazard

Enough to make

One fine fire if perchance

It’s the wintry season

Of my demise

Ring Around

Ringing around the Posies

As the Eastside PE instructor had the third graders circled, my hands tightened upon the wheel. Again I was on the Monticello playground. The instructor telling us the last one to fall down would have to tell who their girl or boy friend is. Terror seized me.

They must not know who I secretly liked.