At Granny’s

 At Granny's

John Clare Stokes

Pappa she kept tightly in the urn upon the mantle place 

Great Granny's wooden leg propped open the bedroom breezeway

Nights I'd try and get to sleep quickly

Before granny came shuffling in with cold cream on her face

Through the cracks and chinks the wind whispered

Who is that lying in the feathered bed

Do we hold a wake for another now dead

Now it's just the wind I was assured.

Then from the Florida room a fiddle 

Upon the cool hard pine floor a tapping

Someone in there an old rhythm keeping

I dared not wake to peek in.

By morning rooster waking I asked

Granny did you enjoy last nights company

She smiled and dipped some Tube Rose slowly

Went about the early days tasks humming

Seems we weren't in this place by ourselves

I eventually grew accustomed to pappa Urn on the shelf

Great granny letting in the cool wind to warm by the hearth

Never invited but I eventually looked 

Forward to the midnight fiddling to begin.

Bug

 Bug

This is bug

His pedigree

Is he came

From Victor

The brother

In jail now

Who bought

Him for Ebony

His little 

Princess

Who I

Purchased

For twenty

For my little

Prince

He was afraid

Of Bug

Who would

Whinney and

Snort

Must of been

His raising

Cross the tracks

For even without

His 4 batteries

In the dead

Of night 

Bug would neigh 

In the living room

Waking me

And I would 

Go in and rub

Him down and

Give him some

Straw

I think even 

Though the

Prince feared him

And the Princess

Outgrew him

He still called

For them.

Mighty tired Coach

 Mighty tired coach Honea

With the loss

With the loss

With the loss

When was the

Winning season

Winning season

Never made state

Never will

Never will

The third place yellow district ribbon fades 

Jon Perry of PK Young

Forever winning

Winning 

Winning 

The 180 low 

hurdle race

20.2

Golden years

 Golden Years

johnclarestokes 

The father recalls the golden years

Of a son that once lingered near

Of a father matching his gait

Pausing often to wait

Keeping the son in sight

And they would stop and listen

Poised in aim at any rustling 

Hid in the tree boughs watching

And the crows would alarm at the sound

On the father and son looking down

The father would whisper now son

And the son would squeeze the trigger on the gun

And the father would say well done

Beaming with the bagging of the bushy tail

Of golden years the story we often would tell.

Lil daredevil

 Lil daredevil 

Days we somehow much more miss

Others it’s as if it never did exist

But the short time we had

Was grand for this grand mom and dad.

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.

Good while it lasted

 Good while it lasted

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

 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

 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.