Bless the zinnas

 Bless the Zinnia's

by Johnclarestokes 

Father I trust you will forgive me

For they were Dollar General Zinnias

Four packs for a mere dollar

And I am not even sure

If I can get them to grow

the way they would for you,

Even though from far,far away

the seeds you'd let me spread,

little colored buttons soon opening

to sauce pan size growing,

and we would gather up a bouquet

upon the altar bowing as you prayed

the repentant would kneel near

the zinnias between you and their tears

watering them

perhaps revealing why

the zinnias grew so greatly.

Oh father

bless from on high

the dollar general zinnias

with my efforts be pleased.

Ernest Stokes, father of Luther Stokes in Homewood, Mississippi

Library show

 The two entries came with a price. Normally I frame my own as cheap as possible from Amazon. This year I had Picture Frame Design double matt and frame them. He really liked the B@w as it reminded him of his home place in Indiana. He said it was fine art as it was printed on high quality fiber paper. I enter them tomorrow,0n a threshold of a journey and The back way home. 

Ole Homewood

 Ole Homewood

Johnclarestokes 

My father first began growing and making sugar cane syrup in the mid seventies after acquiring from Wakulla County farmers the necessary implements,the old Golden Mill, the Columbus 60 gallon kettle and various straining tools, one being an old Chevy moon hubcap with holes drilled in it. When we lived in Sopchoppy in the fifties and sixties, we would annually attend the syrup cooking of Bert Rodenberry and Kenneth Strickland who taught my father how to properly cook the syrup, though he already knew much from his growing up on a farm.  He got a local brickmason Mr Dick Snyder,  to make his first chimney and kettle holder in what we called the sugar shack, a little cabin built around the kettle with a bath,kitchen and bedroom where we spent much of our time heated by the old wood stove. He called his syrup, Old Homewood, after the town in Scott County Mississippi where he was born and raised. I drew up some labels for the wild turkey and store bought bottles. With the help of the trusty Gravely tractor rigged on the cross beam to stay locked in a turning direction, it was up to the children and grandchildren and various relatives and friends to feed the stalks of cane into the mill, remembering sometimes not to duck each time the pole came around, giving all a laugh at their expense. It was our annual tradition at Thanksgiving to cook down the cane juice in the 60 gallon kettle to about ten gallons of syrup, the process usually finishing around noon where mamma and the girls usually had the tables under the trees ready for wonderful eating. It was always a tense and sometimes testy moment just before the kerosene fire from the rabbit box burner was turned off and the boiling came to an end. Too long and the syrup would be full of black flecks or dregs, too soon and it would not have the right consistency. Knowing when to dip the syrup out at the precise specific gravity from the hydrometer, usually around 16 we used to measure the syrup, or when the syrup candied when spilling off the dipper was  often a hit and miss experiment. I still have several bottles of Old Homewood and tell myself, someday I will set up the Golden mill, which I recently did in the back yard after my father passed away in March of 2011, leaving it all to me, but it is looking more and more like this tradition may have died when my father did in Williston. I hope not.

Kristy

 Lily Kristy 

What were her qualities? 

Why did she

Get the job?

Simply she was pretty

And young

Just blooming 

Yesterday.

As day drew on

 As the day drew on

More the cynic 

He'd become

It was no leaf

Smiling happily 

At the tiny

hopper 

No, it was 

Guillotine 

Ready to

Lop her

head

The night

He especially 

Did dread

With the 

Turning 

Wheel of fortune

Jeopardy

Awaiting

Craven 

The cynic cycle

Landing repeatedly 

Upon bankruptcy 

Giving it back

Headless hoppers

Haunting him

Sharp leaves

Cutting

Morning longed for

The beginning anew

Perhaps this day

Making it til noon

Quietly tipping

Not waking the

Cynic sleeping

In the other

Room.

Don’t let death

Don't let death

Get you so far down

He was not supposed 

So long to be around

The day he came

He began to die away

You could see it in

his eyes, the far away

gaze.

You should of known

better 

I'm disappointed 

in you

living like you

too will die. 

Bum to bum

 Sitting in the Elks lot photographing the rainbow, the cart can man walks by. I point to the rainbow behind him, to show him what I'm doing.He wanted money. In my haste to chase the rainbow I did not bring any, which I seldom have anyhow. It didn't matter, he walked off mumbling what a bum I was. He was correct. He offered me a dollar.

He looked back

 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.

Things done

Things done

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?

Once the photographers

 Once photographers moored along the bend....Long before everyone caught the trend...Search and you may find traces of tripod holes....Align your digital upon the spot and see from where they took the shot

Homecoming

 Homecoming

Look honey, there’s Aunt Spora in her pleated ink cap