Journey with John Stokes

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

He looked back

Lots

It was darkest

After the light

So bright

Quit turning

Everything into

Salty tears

But a blur

Ghost Flight

Just as the jet crossed the moon, the clouds obscured, reducing the shutter to 1/60 and making the jet ghostly. Sometimes unintended consequences are fine.

In 2020 they were tearing down old Williston High and Elementary this week. No one seems to mind, they have a new school out on 27. Somehow I mind, in a sentimental manner. Things done to Williston, once my hometown, still my hometown, still affects me. The First Baptist Church. Why did they keep the atrocious Neal building and build the uber ugly metal building beside it? The long abandoned Winn Dixie shell on 121. Bulldoze it how about it? The entire downtown parking on the store frontage. Why didn’t they tell DOT to shove it, build a bypass if you must. The city hall. What took so long? Top of hill. Why the empty field so long where Holiday Inn stood. Hospital. How it came to be closed a crying shame.

Chick Inn, Carse Oil. More sad Shame. I’m sounding way too negative on my town, there have been nice improvements. I just hate to come every Sunday and see the state it’s in, compared to my memory. I really dread coming this week and seeing a missing school. And finally, has Pesso been tar and feathered yet? And will someone run that Devils Den bunch out so we can skip school again there?

But then, people kill corn snakes and rattlesnakes too.

Don’t look back

John Clare Stokes

Don’t look back little one

Once there was a son

Who at that very spot

When like you he was young

He jumped right in

Went below in the dark mire

One jumped in and rescued him

Or did he not ever come up?

What of the lilies

What is it with lilies?

Is it because they rhyme with memory

And thus they are in that family

Of things that move me?

But zinnia and gardenia are there as well

And as far as I can tell

They too bring me under the spell

In which I seem to have forever dwelt.

What of the magnolia blossoms?

Yes, to their opening ceremonies I run

Giddy as a boy with presents opening

Bidding my friends to come! Come!

Who placed this love of lilies within?

I want to meet and thank him

They say He has this grand garden

And if you are patient, he will come

And let you walk with him

In the cool of the evening.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

When you get the point

When you get to the point

You just point the camera up

And record what's happening up there

You either need to be a meteorologist

Give up photography

Or make that scene so compelling

We want to be up there floating.

Taboric light

Taboric Light

by john cla55

once the time we climbed the mount

to meet transfiguration leaving us

glowing with the Taboric light

fading as we descended below

covering the glow ashamed to let

mere men know the fading was

complete refusing to live humbly

uncovered at the foot of the

mountain.

I’ll never comprehend

I'll never comprehend

This God who sends

Lightening

Thundering

Loudly yet

Goes about ever

So quietly

Secretly

Never lifting his

Veil

Telling us

By faith

Not sight

In weakness

In suffering

In humility

Poverty

How men

Worship Him

Bowing

Then going about

Living apart

Alien

Mean

Denying

Like it seems

He wants them to

Lift the veil

Revealing Him

Calmly

Striking them.

Things beyond

Many a Sabbath we were admonished to set the

Affections on the things above

Look away from the things of this world

But we couldn't stop gazing at what we loved

It became obvious as a white flag unfurling.

We did not have to go about wearing scarlet letters

We knew the color of our deepest affections

Down to the very rhyme, symbol and metaphor

A straight on literal view void of tone or inflection.

Unable to see the flip side of the veil

Deaf to the heavenly refrain of angels

It wasn't a mystery, we could tell

To us it was mere metal, not a holy grail.