It’s a low float

It’s a low float

Today the Shoals are beneath the flooding torrent

An easy paddle through the class three rapids

The limestone knives unable to puncture or rent

Hiding even the Gator downstream lazily awaiting

Your capsizing.

Moon trap

 We decked the web with jewels

To entice a fairy or two

But we never dreamed the moon

Would fall for our ruse.

Cardinals rule

 We keep the feeders full in the yard

It’s ok if the starlings and sparrows feed

They too in winter have it hard

But it’s for the Cardinals mostly to see.

Sopchoppy dock

 The Sopchoppy dock

John Clare Stokes 

Once it was the little boys life dream

To go beyond mothers watchful eye

Out from her reach in shallow shore

To reach the distant dock with the teens

In Sopchoppy sun lazing the summer day

Where mothers watchful words weren’t heard

Now a big boy on the side of panthers screams

Watching the children in far shallows wade

Today the distance seems so easily close

Sadly children no longer play in the dark tannic

It’s long since been the old man’s life dream

Yet still to hear mamma say, John, by me stay.

Home on the range

 O give them a home 

Johnclarestokes 

We tried to give them a home

Bought some buffalo to roam

Even had deer and antelope with them to play

Seldom heard a discouraging word

The sky even obeyed with n’er a cloudy day

But it didn’t help

They left anyway

Haven’t heard from them since

And the yea sayers say

Oh they will return some day

And we say

You think?

What makes you such an  authority 

In home on ranges?

On the trail again

 On the trail again

The 2 mile walk was at Alligator Lake park. Out and back on the Montgomery trail. Lugged heavy D850 with 200-500 for extra exercise. Didn’t even shoot, looking in it once for a fellow asking if I saw any ring necks among the coots. Met another new photographer friend at Watertown recently moved here. She had the little Canon my friend Larry Perry uses. She thought just because my lens was so large, it would reach further. I told her hers would reach just as far as would the Nikon P1000 another friend Marion uses.

So you guys with tiny lenses on tiny cameras, take heart.

The final glories

 The final glories 

It’s been a good run with the glories

Something to look forward to visiting

But as in all things there are seasons

Long into winter I shall recall their story.

Beyond winters

 Beyond winters 

Johnclarestokes 

There atop the azalea bush one bloomed

Prelude to Spring on a most winsome day

While above just a hint of the new moon

So much more than words could say.

City barber Bill

 Give me a head with hair

Now that it is all gone save the out of control brow and ear and nose hair, it’s difficult now to see what was all the fuss and rebellion when my father would give me a few dollars and tell me to get a haircut.

Ever since the Beatles forever ruined the flat top with the butch wax bangs sticking up, going to Bill Griffis and father barbershop was a nerve wracking ordeal. I would try and give explicit instructions, just a little off the sides, keep it on the ear, etc. Mr Bill would mostly get it right and I’d return home to a father who’d say, why didn’t you get a haircut?

But, on those rare occasions you found yourself in Mr Bills fathers chair, who couldn’t hear, and who coughed the entire time, causing the clippers to jerk, you’d return home in near tears to a father proud you got a decent haircut.

City Barbers

Williston

Gate keeper

 Gate keeper

Johnclarestokes 

We wait at the gate

Each day per chance

The latch lifts quietly 

Not to wake us

Slipping back finally.

I adjust the sliding latch

Oil the creak from the hinges 

Sweep the sandy path

Keep it as remembered

Smooth the sheets and weep

Journey

 Journey on the 5th

The Lake City to Houston is passing through

I can arrive tomorrow for one eighty two

Why when a boy I’d board for Bluefield alone

Mamma told the bus driver to see him home.

Puckered out

 Puckered out

Johnclarestokes 

How was I to know

If the resolution was 

Working

Or the offering

Acceptable 

No voice to say

I am well pleased

Just the awful silence

Things moving as they

Have moved since

The beginning

And so I ate another

Persimmon 

The fifth day as good

As any to begin

Again.

Cain’s offering