Maria

Queen of mud wrestling 

It was your apogee moment

Your life would never rise above it

Your pinnacle

Your nadir

Against which all else

You'd measure

And you looked about

For someone to 

Photograph it

To prove to all

Years later

This was the moment

To Frame it

To Keep it as a reminder

You were once upon the top

But I wasn't there

I was away recording

Some others meteoric rise

To the heights

You see

They could afford to pay me 

So naturally

I went with the money

I'm so sorry

You had to spend your life

Convincing others 

You once rose so highly.

Redeemer

 Redeemer

Johnclarestokes 

Moccasin slid silently along beside

limpid-eyed hare struck a frozen pose

lanky-legged raccoon hastened stride

from this foe they so know.

Came a man laden down

in shadow the slithering snake 

blood of Cain crying from the ground

on his calf the fangs did partake. 

Hare on the lush green grass fed

Raccoon washed his meal that night

for the man, taking the poison bled  

as Moccasin recoiled at the bitter bite.

In the darkness dwells a man slayer

his sting of death for all meant  

the creatures marvel this redeemer

man with the potion heavenly sent.

O Heli

 O Heli 

John Clare Stokes

What was it like

To be a Pappa?

Did Mary let you

Often hold Him?

Did you take Him

For walks along 

The Galilee shores?

That time He was

Left at the Temple

Did you get onto

Joseph?

Did He cry the last

Time you saw Him?

Did He ask to stay

Awhile longer with 

Pappa Heli?

I know it must have

Broke your heart

To lose Him so early

At just thirty-three.

Luke 3:23

I often speculate upon Heli, Joseph’s father, Jesus grandfather, and if he had any part in Jesus life. 

Holding Nathaniel , my grandson, for the first time at Lake Shore Hospital.

Broken John

  To mend the broken things

John Clare Stokes

When before I turned ten in Sopchoppy, I took the John Wesley bust from the shelf in my fathers parsonage office and began to dance around the house with him. I think my sister may have been dancing with the other, Charles, but needless to say, I dropped John, breaking him in many pieces. 

I do not recall getting a whipping, I’m sure I did, but I do recall my father meticulously glueing back Wesley, until you could hardly tell he took a fall.

And so the Wesley’s went with us through the years unscathed upon the various shelves, to finally dwell in our Lake City home. 

And so this Fathers Day morning, I found myself in the back shed, attempting to mend an old rake long broken. Among the old tools, there was much contemplating upon my father and his passing along to me that desire to restore, to mend, to up purpose as a friend likes to share.

And then there is that same desire my father had as a Pastor to mend, to restore to want lives of loved ones to find their up purpose.

Will the old rake work? Will Wesley find a shelf when I’m gone? Will a son find home? Until then, I mend.

The hunt

 In the hand me down 

Hunters coat the father

Gave the son who gave

The son

With the 4-10 gun the

Father gave the son

Who gave the son

The trio set out in the

Cold Wakulla morning

The son following the

Son and the father

Quietly looking for any 

Sign or sound of game

Even then recording the scene

For the son knew this

Would never come again

And he wanted something

To remember the time.

Annette

 Annette 

Annette Porter of Sopchoppy

You kept me as a baby

I was too young for my sisters party

But today Annette

I'm old enough to attend

But the home is gone

Even George Trice 

I think has died

And his sister Janet

Who tried to drown me

Can’t attend.

They take

 They take

Churches

They take 

Screens

They take

Pews

Hiding them

Saying

Mine

Mine

They take

Windows

They take

Floors

They take

the locks

Saying

Mine

Mine

I hide them

I clutch them

I claim them

Mine

Mine

Cypress field trip

 Now children, stay close

The turkey oaks are not a friendly folk

And the sweet gum are stuck up bums

I want you cypress to see

Not all trees have lovely knees.

Lady Isabella

 Lady Isabella  

by john clare

  She lures me to her tamed embrace 

  Pungent aromas wafting over once wild ways  

 Civility feigned in her tolerance of the Muscovy 

 Far cries from the gathering of the Timucuan

 Dugouts arriving to her unsettled banks 

 Drunk upon the black emetic around ceremonial

 fires circling to face General Gaines invading warriors. 

 Ever so often a shaft hurls from the sky  

As another fledgling Muscovy flies  

 Not from its own will 

 But in the clutch of the sreaming talons uncivil  

 Lady Isabella politely bows and nods 

 Pleased with the appeasing of her God.

Witness Trees

 Where two or three

Suwannee River 

At Prospect Primitive

When I pause by the three

Witness trees

I think of all they have seen

Going down into the 

Suwannee 

Coming back in newness of life

Day spell

 Day Spell

I do not know what overcame me

Perhaps it was her day lilies

I told her I didn't care if she was over eighty

Her lilies made her look under thirty to me.

The 180 low hurdler

 The low hurdler

John Clare Stokes

“He had started going to parties again, but without the hurdle race to run, the parties of his friends and neighbors seemed to him interminable and stale. He listened to their dirty jokes with an irritability that was hard for him to conceal. Even their countenances discouraged him, and, slumped in a chair, he would regard their skin and their teeth narrowly, as if he were himself a much younger man." from John Cheever's short story, O Youth and Beauty!

It was in the Spring of integration seventh grade that it was apparent I was going to need to find a new event. Up until we merged with East Williston I was a 100 and 220 yard dash speedster, or so I thought. For a white boy, so so, but against my ebony teammates, maybe show, not win or place.

I moved up to middle distance, the 440 and mile relay, but still I lacked the necessary strength and speed to excel.

It was Coach Dean who suggested I try the 180 low hurdle event. It required speed and skill to clear the hurdles. Only problem is the school had no hurdles, not even a track. So Coach had the shop class build a set of wooden hurdles, heavy and painful to hit. I’d set them out on the road between the gym and shop and proceed to try to train.

Time for the first meet in Chiefland came and I drew lane one on the cinder oval around the Indian football field. When the gun started us, I was off and won, or so I thought.

I was disqualified for not going over with both legs, but straddling them with only the lead leg going over. I know this was the result of hitting those ole wooden ones I trained on.

Eventually with the help of our new track coach Tom Honea and Coach Robinson assisting, I was able to excel at the hurdle event, setting school records that will never be beaten, for they eventually cancelled the 180 low hurdle event in high school.

I never made state, as Uncle Rico and I will always lament. Had Coach Honea only stayed for my senior year and had I not quit track to play basketball.…maybe that Jon Perry from PK Young and that guy with glasses from Lake Butler would have graduated and I’d take state, as I line up the furniture in the living room and prepare for another hurdle race, Melanie with gun in hand.

At Florida Relays with teammate Lorenzo Law on the 180 low hurdles