Angels Unaware

Angels Unaware

By john clare

Now if he was an angel I would have seen the wings

Heard the tune that heaven and nature sings

I would have placed upon the table the finest Rhodora

Set the golden silver in the proper order

But there was no table just a lift station pump

No song just the sound of sewage that stunk

Not the realm where angels should dwell

Wrapped in frumpy robes with a woody smell

And then as soon as my order came he was gone

The cars in line impatiently honked to move along

Later as I set the table of Lenox dinnerware

I wondered who would entertain angels unaware?

Dream wish

 I wished you in a dream

The brush of flesh to wing

I dreamed upon the wind

Winging flesh caressing.

Walk scently

 Walk scently 

Through the early mists ahead something slips

and one pauses perchance it hasn’t noticed 

but it knew the presence from the scent

long before the interloper ever came to stillness.

End of days

 Last year we opined 

The end of Diluvian days

And so it was 

And so we recall

Moon down

 Moon down

Moon down 

Came the cry

Stars up

Stars up

Came the reply

Of Redwings I sing

 Of Redwings I sing

Of pinewood vistas unfolding

Crescent moons humbly setting

Frost and freeze holding beauty

Down to the cry of one

Beholding eternity

I these I sing.

Larry

 Larry

Johnclarestokes 

Saturday mornings we see Larry

eating breakfast alone

at the Huddle House

in Five Points

Larry is an artist

Larry had a friend

Owen

Owen died

Larry eats alone at the Huddle House

I stop by his table and tell him hello

We both miss

Owen

Book yearning

 A Book Yearning

Johnclarestokes

Quickly! the Marshall said

Flee from the burning

And in my haste

I reached for the shelf

Scanning the books to read

Lamenting

I could not decide

Which to save

As in the flames

Words unread ascended

Not one remembered

All greatly missed

Dream of stream

 Dream of Stream

Johnclarestokes 

When freeze falls around

Impeding men in making

the daily round

When dreams struggle

to give rise

Hope held beneath

to drown

There is a stream

to which we long

Where forever goes

the never frozen flow.

Artists obscure

 The artists obscure

Willie Ohl

Johnclarestokes 

I came upon an elderly artist one day, her paints in her taboret. She said it's painful to be an artist, and not be able to use your hands. The little Indian boy, her son was a subject. The others, the husband, the mother, the father gone, the daughter all there upon the canvas. The late Artist Theron Gaulding of White Springs once said, he prefers to dwell in obscurity.

How I wish they dwelt in a gallery for all to see.

Dream of Jumpy

 dream on jumpy 

johnclarestokes 

Does it not seem a 

Futile thing to wake

The sleeping man?

Let him dream awhile

Yet

Lost in his boyhood 

Stepping 

Down to the dark 

Riverbank 

Lapping as a dog

where he drank

Swinging upon the

Scuppernong vines

Higher in the canopy 

He climbs

Mamma called in vain

But jumpy never came

Bottle and boots 

Found abandoned

Is the child now a man?

Between a splashing 

and a slow drifting

Down the winding

Sopchoppy

We will never know.

Nw160th

 NW 160TH AV

Years ago when I lived in Williston, this was one of the few homes along scenic 160th Av out from Williston off US27. Saturday, as we startled a bald eagle feeding on a possum next to the old home place, this photograph was taken. There are so many horse farms and dwellings now, I hardly recognized the road.