My first basketball game scoring 3 points, Sending a note to Deborah Daniel’s that Mrs Floyd intercepted, staying in class with Wayne Lassiter drawing instead of PE, outrunning the Haines boy for the fastest kid in third grade.
To recognize them and redeem them.
Not every encounter will be of woman at the well magnitude, most will simply be lifting moments, acknowledging moments, affirming moments. Minuscule from your perspective but of mighty significance from His.
Johnclarestokes
I think of those now gone on
Some to eternal worlds
Others yet remaining here
And I’m ever grateful for their labors
In the kingdom not of calloused hands
Men as ZT Johnson of Asbury
Who helped usher me into the kingdom
A father, Luther Ray, who welcomed me
At the altar of repentance
There were many following
Razziel at Florida Southern my brother
Mentoring me so lovingly
A long chain of laborers
From Russell and a community praying
Melanie back to us
To Aaron singing softly to a dying mother
Touching beyond knowing this
Heart prone to hardening
So grateful for the workers in the vineyard
So looking forward to drinking in
The fruits of their labors one day.
ZT Johnson, President of Asbury College with Rev Luther Ray Stokes and Bert Roddenberry at his farm in Sopchoppy, Florida.
Johnclarestokes
Old Town Chipewan trimmed
Paddles poised in remember
For tonight from shiver to timber
We stroke upstream to forgetting
From Cone pylons to Limp bend mystery
Our journey quietly wends
Suwannee time suspends
Sand bars all open
Full moon all enveloping
Tupelo tonic mixes with the tannic
A doe dips low for a taste
Barred owls who do you think
Pileated's pine bark rain falls
Coyotes call on the prowl
Wet wood hisses and growls
Soon by firefly light we sleep
To mares of critters creeping
By dawns dew prints revealing
Pungent fresh the nocturnal fumes
Stoke the embers to live
Coax it to warmth give
All is misty in the limp bend
By first light the Suwannee
Amnesia begins.
John Clare Stokes
What possible good was I
The aged poet called to her side
One of her end of days requests
Made no doubt in mad duress
What would she reveal
Would she tell of love in secrecy
Of trips to the beach by darkness
When all the world was sleeping
The setting moon, the rising sun
It knew us
A few starfish too
But that was about all
Holding the frail, withered hand
Warmth as of old still in the veins
The writing once so eloquent
The touch so tender
Parting the old, old friend
To my ear she began whispering
The dying words of a lover
Read to me again
Our poem of the ocean.
John 's painting is still on the wall of the Living By Faith Sunday school room. I assume now, as this was 2017.
For every horizon...For every prayer...For Kingdoms to come...For those who knelt there.
That
I will do my duty
To Ganesh and the Lion King
I will do my best to help
Elephants, whatever it costs me
I know the Mahout law and
I will obey it.....
Poppy spent it was Brenda
his wife in Solaris naturally
Brenda was Meme’s roommate
Brenda looked after Meme
As her own mother
Poppy took Brenda home
Now Brenda and Meme
Are in glory.
John Clare Stokes
Come Saturday September mornings
When the land begins the autumn cool
The goldenrod on roadsides is seen growing
Persimmon on the tree to sweet turning
Faintly within there is this calling
To journey far into the Gum Swamp pines
Past the Sanderson fork beyond the Ocean Pond
On past the Taylor grocery store break
Far, far over the St Mary’s river into Moniac
Where the Nehi streams flow forever amber
You can reach right up and pluck
A moon pie from the South Georgia sky
Sit and stare lovingly into her snaggletooth eyes
Hear her say, “where you been all my days?”
And you reply, “Burning daylight!
Burning daylight, my darling.
Now here in Moniac I can die.”
