Wings

 He gave not wings  But gave us swings  For days in June  In heat we swoon   We can sit and sway  And fly far away

Gone with the wind

 Gone with the wind

I’ve been reflecting upon Gone with the wind, the Pulitzer Prize novel by Margaret Mitchell and the movie, which was a rapid version of the book, which was much more enjoyable. One of the things about the movie conveniently ignored today, is the great love that flowed both ways, even despite Scarlett’s often very unlovable ways. It’s as if the narrative in all things racial must be white bad, white fault, white oppressing. 

I wrote yesterday of Angeline, our maid, and how she loved me as her son, held me in the same esteem as her own children, wasn’t in any way ashamed to be seen with me, a spoiled little white boy. And I loved her as well. No, the narrative should be, it was only a job to her, you were enslaving her, you must apologize. 

One of the reasons so much is Going with the wind today is the focus is on such things as justice, revenge, hatred, animosity, all things divisive, and nothing of a love for a mammy and her petulant Scarlet.

Three things

 There are three things which are too

wonderful to me, yea, four which I know not:

The way of a kite in the air

The way of a serpent upon a rock

The way of a ship in the midst of the sea

And the way of a man with a maid.

Sting

 Hummingbirds travail

The ever working ones in the yard 

Isn’t life for them trying enough

To contend with wasps rough

enough to put a sting quite hard

From rails to boat tails

From Rails to Boat tails 

Waiting for Magritte 

Johnclarestokes 

Does everything align to your reason?

Must there exist rational explanation for everything?

If I showed you a mystery we shall not all sleep

Would you lie awake nights your soul to keep?

The silver queen

 The Silver Queen

Johnclarestokes 

He would stop along the way to some humble 

abode and ask intently why no interest

Why she had land and horses and the best family

Are you just of another persuasion?

And she’d assure him not and pray just someway

to get away

For the evening was coming

When under the cover of darkness

to slip away and meet the Silver Queen

to lie in the watermelon fields and listen

as the coyotes and hounds called to her

The girl with the horses long since sleeping

dreaming of her coming preacher boy

but he never came 

For he too was under the spell of the 

Silver Queen

And it wasn’t until years later

The grandson came

But by then the old preacher 

Upon his dying bed

could only gaze into his eyes 

without a word

That’s the price one pays

to give his love to the Silver Queen

her gestation measured in years 

the grandson exiled to her island.

Yesterday

 Yesterday 

Johnclarestokes 

Four swallowtail 

Above me did sail

Above me did sail

Today

Three buzzards 

Above me did hover

Above me did hover

Tomorrow

Two cardinals 

Above me will discover

Above me will discover 

Forever

This man

Below them was a lover

Below them was a lover

Fathers of sons

 Fathers of sons

Wasn’t it a grand thing

When we’d gather in

the day with laughter

enough to chase all

cares away

Oh what a day

On the wings of

 On the wings of a Snow White kite

He sends His pure delight

With a sign from the height

On the wings of a kite.

Your limb

 I’m sitting watching the moon

I hear a cracking sound

A pine limb big enough to squish me

Falls within ten feet avoiding the vehicle

Don’t think tree limbs don’t have a

Master guiding them

So be prepared

Should the Master one day say

Limb, upon him.

River Narrows

 River Narrows  

 by John Clare Stokes  

  Okeefenokee paddle strokes  

Trembling under thwart 

 Bull Gators provoked  

Island hammock snorts 

 Black bear splashing 

 Paddle strokes increasing  

Into tannic crashing 

 Fear never ceasing  

Into River Narrows  

Suwannee's birth canal  

The silence grows  

 Then screams and howls  

 Conceived into flow  

 Eternal toward sea 

 New secrets unfold 

 Birthed from Okeefenokee

Bob Jones in Dougon on River Narrows

Ten Years After

 Ten Years After

Johnclarestokes 

Alvin Lee I would listen to

going home, to see my baby

I'd love to change the world

Everywhere freaks and fairies

We thought yesterday 

Back to two oh thirteen

and before that oh three

and on and on back the 

Ten years after

And how much happened

In the last Ten Years After

And wondered what could

Possibly happen in the next

Ten Years Coming.