Journey with John Stokes

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Days of malaise

It's got to be the days of malaise

We just want to sit and dwell upon

The cool, fall days

But we must rise to face the heat

Lilies languishing at our feet.

My cousins in Mississippi and Alabama, Jeanne and Sue, took it upon themselves to plan a family reunion for this weekend in Homewood, Mississippi, their mother and father and my fathers birthplace. Lots of work went into it and hopes were high. Then one by one, circumstances arose and this one wasn’t coming, that one was sick, another just never responded. And so the reunion was cancelled, then revived with a remnant, then even that was cancelled today.

They said they wouldn’t plan another. It’s sad to live to witness the death of a family. Many I never knew except maybe a week or so my entire life when thankfully, our parents still took vacations to visit family, but no longer. We shall always remain strangers. Thank you Jeanne and Sue for trying.

Down in Old Town

Old Town

By now Old Town

Has been taken down

The canoes stored

In lower Maine

Awaiting portage

From Penobscot

To upper Suwannee

From our frames

Today was just the right

kind of Sunday

A half moon above

The just enough to soothe

breeze

Hummingbirds feeding

New chickens scratching

To take you from inside

your frame

And let you just again

enjoy your time upon

this side of the glass.

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

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.