Azalea plea

 Azalea Plea.

Should I bloom for you

 or freeze and fall

 life between gray and blue

 Saint Peter and Paul.

wailing wall or 

curtain call

Bloom not for me

Or Peter or Paul.

Bloom only

Despite us all.

The February azaleas

Convict in the loft

 Convict in the loft 

Johnclarestokes 

It evokes a few lines of prose in me

That old wood and tin I once knew

In the cool dark sand among the relics

Sun light glaring in between the cracks

Sounds in the rafters would startle

In reality but a corn snake after the mouse

To me the escaped convict hiding out

And I’d quietly creak up the clasp

Scurry into the kitchen beside grandma

She’d glance down from the stirring, say,

“Why boy, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

I didn’t venture much into the dark din

Every now and then I’d bravely peer in

Listen for the rustling from the rafters

Never told the Sheriff I knew where the

convict was they were after

Free to this day in the shadows hiding out.

Olustee

 It’s almost time.

Bert’s

 Illumination in the Flatwoods

A season with the wild turkey

by Joe Hutto

There is a book I highly recommend written by Joe Hutto and his experiment in imprinting two dozen wild turkey and living with them. The place where this took place was on the property surrounding Bert Roddenberry's old Florida home place in the Apalachicola National Forest out from Sopchoppy. The man in the overalls and boots is Brother Robertus or Bert, 1890-1981. The man in the dapper city clothes was Lawrence George, a gospel singer, in Sopchoppy for a revival as the song leader for my father, the late Rev Luther Stokes at the United Methodist Church in Sopchoppy.

Wawa

 Hill stop 

Johnclarestokes 

Leaving Bronson on 27

Through the scrub and

Sandhills passing 

Just ten miles more

He promised his bride

It’s a lovely hill top view

All the way down Noble Avenue

Why, they even have a swimming pool

We can order the southern fried chicken

In the family restaurant 

Maybe later snuggle at the picture show

down on Main if you want

Afterwards, sneak into Blue Grotto

For some skinny dipping

Oh my lovely bride 

Just ten miles more.

Can moon play

 The clouds asked the trees

Can the moon come out to play

The trees replied to the clouds

Yes, but only for a spell

For his bedtime comes quickly

Crossing the branch

 Back when Robinson Branch was low

A father and son hiked the Florida trail

Pondering if they could cross where the 

oak tree fell

The son was the first to bravely balance the beam

The father followed shaky and on to the Shoals

together high fiving.

The old man came

 The old man came from the field where he had been plowing and quietly sat upon the steps in the shade of the dogtrot, not a word was spoken. As for me, I knew that my time among them was drawing to a close. I reverently gathered my things and bid my own way out quietly, not disturbing the old man deep in thought of droughts and burning crops, down the old brick walk path and out of their lives, never to again see the old man, spent from fighting the unyielding fields.

The old man pondered

 and the old man would ponder the boyhood days in Kentucky, before the depression years sent the families scattering, how the land willingly gave forth in her abundance, and the tobacco would slowly cure, as the old men upon the porches would inhale that sweet aroma of the bumper crop, season after season, and the boy would long for the sweet leafy smell, of the stories the old men would tell, and groaned again, wishing he was again among the men in those blue grass hills.

The old man and the boy

 The old man and the boy 

Johnclarestokes 

the narrow deep rut drive to the county pavement came quickly, as the old place, once uncontainable, now fit in the rectangle of the rear view.  The months became years, the years decades and the old man no longer sat upon the cool dog trot, the memory of him all but forgotten, as the little boy didn't even own a photo to recall the kindly paw who once sat him upon the blue tractor, his wide brimmed hat shading them as they turned furrows up and down ‘til sunset,  the golden glow upon the parched Florida sand transforming the tired dirt into a new creation of an Eden mirage.

The sounding

 The sounding

Johnclarestokes 

In the early morning in the deepest dreaming

They come sounding

Scrape of walker upon the concrete 

Spin of cycle gears in the street

Shuffles from a little boys feet

Sounds of son after adventures far

And I wake and peer into the dawn

Perchance the sounds were returning home

And upon the threshold 

It wasn’t Roger

It wasn’t daddy

It wasn’t Landon

It wasn’t Nathaniel

It wasn’t mother

But Tucker.

Today seven years ago I found Tucker out front gone, no visible signs of injury. A mystery.

About face

 About face

Johnclarestokes 

In the reoccurring dream

the little one is always running

running running

facing always away away

the old man is calling calling

but the little one

into the distance is receding 

there seems no turning

there seems no catching

this one forever 

Away racing

racing

away