Shoals

 I have got to the age now where I can see how short a time we have to be here. And when I think about it, it can seem strange beyond telling that this particular bunch of us should be here on this little patch of ground in this little patch of time, and I can think of the other times and places I might have lived, the other kinds of man I might have been. But there is something else. There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with one another and with the place and all the living things. 

~ Wendell Berry 

Jordon at Big Shoals

Suwannee

Photo by John Clare Stokes

Gadarene

 Gadarene

Sometime I see myself as the crazed

Gadarene

Living chained among the tombs

Striking great fear

In all who would venture near

Other times the one in his

Right mind

Sitting quietly at the Masters feet

Striking great fear

In all who would venture near.

As trees

 As trees 

John Clare Stokes

You get to the age

When you think

By now I should 

See clearly

But the vision is

Still cloudy

Men as trees walking

Not discerning

An arm from a branch

A leg from a root

And the voice you hear

Is it of man or is it

Of fowl

I take to the limbs

Carefully

Saw in hand

I begin cutting

Not knowing from

Whence comes

The screaming.

Is it sap

Or is it blood?

Father of a certury

 Father of a Century

Johnclarestokes 

I cannot fathom how he did not make it to a century

I truly thought that lean raising in Homewood, Mississippi 

Would prepare him for making it easily

He never tired when working the long

acre rows with the sharp hoe

Digging the endless stretch of posts 

Hole after hole

Waiting patient for the boy so slow

And when he preached and sang

He was so much larger than his frame

Thanks to him so many to heaven came

This day the son upon sixty-nine  will reflect

Cinch his old bolo and recollect

The father of a century he'll always respect.

Rev Luther Ray Stokes, would be 102 today.

Luther Ray

 Father of a Century

Johnclarestokes 

We cannot fathom how he did not make it to

A century

We truly thought that lean raising in Homewood,

Mississippi 

Would prepare him for making it easily

He never tired when working the long

acre rows with the sharp hoe

Digging the endless stretch of posts 

Hole after hole

Waiting patiently for the boy so slow

And when he preached and sang

He was so much larger than his frame

Thanks to him so many to heaven came

This day the son upon sixty-eight will reflect

Cinch the old bolo tie and reminisce 

The father of a century he'll always miss.

Rev Luther Ray Stokes, would be 102 this Oct 16.

Lone chimney

 The lone chimney

Near Luraville 

Nothing evokes sadness 

And melancholy more

Than a lone chimney

In a field or beside a lane

Or under a spreading tree

The speculation 

Of who warmed by the hearth

And what came of them

If they had to flee

A late night burning

Or if they just up and

Abandoned 

The embers smoldering.

Anthem Ascend

 Black and White Challenge #1

Anthem Ascend

My father had just died. Over his body I scribbled these lines for the nurse to read at his bedside memorial at the VA, later posted to the back of his funeral program.

End of muted silent spring

Low the Lily bends her stem

Who can hear the mockingbird sing

The flow of waters above the rim?

Gently into sweet home 

Ascend

Sounds afar draw ever close

In the light stands a friend

All our fears He so knows.

From clays abode we break

The stem grows straight again

Eyes open and faith we take

Never more by sin to bend.

Arise! Arise! You sons of clay

Upon the chariot of fire ride

Enter now the eternal day

Christ the King at your side.

Bleach bond

 Bleach bond

john clare

The bleach and the vinegar were a volatile mixture

The fumes finding their way into the bedroom

To satin sheets to settle upon

The wrapped mints on the pillows melting

The roses on the bedside table wilting

The deadly fumes inhaled  slowly

She tried desperately to hold her breath

But she was soon drowning

Sinking deeply into dreams

Of when it was not such 

Drudgery, the laying, the bleaching, ironing, washing, scrubbing, living, loving, breathing

Along beside her once lover in unison

This stranger who once showered her with 

Roses, wild flowers, candy, mints, poetry, living.

They found her turned a beautiful shade of jade 

The bleach and vinegar they said leeched her color

Leaving her but a shell 

Like a porcelain glass statue

Going up until the end

Through the motions, moving 

in unison with the strangers

rising and falling breaths

Beside her.

Bluefield skys

October Bluefield Sky

John Clare Stokes 

When a little boy in a Florida fall

Mamma would gather my sister 

and we’d go down to the Y in

the Sopchoppy 319 road, 

my little blue suitcase

packed for a stay or two

to board the Trailways bound

for Bluefield, West Virginia 

to see Monnie and granddaddy 

Richard 

the retired Crumpler to Northfork

bus driver 

to see chain smoking and gin 

Sipping Andy Ford salesman

in the new Mustang 

Uncle Kermit

Who drove mamma

In fifty five in the January snow

To deliver me

and to see his brother Don

up on that steep Castlewood

drive with the cool Army gear

which cousin David and I

would play

While Paula and Donna Lynn

thought of ways

to escape Aunt Mabel’s fussing

over

To run up the cow fields with the

Daniels dairy boys 

The dank sweet smell of the

Cold milk stored in bottles

For the route

Or play Fred Biletnikoff football

with the red headed Thompson 

twins 

Florida State seldom topping the Mountaineers 

To climb the black cherry tree

In front of Grandma Carrie Ethel’s

And eat more than I picked for

Monny’s pie.

Then high on East River Mountain

behind the brick house with the

dark basement with the real little girl

Stove my mamma had as a girl in Crumpler

The Red Ridge Runner narrow gauge

 train would whistle down the mountain 

and we’d beg someone to take us up

For a ride in the black Buick

Uncle Kermit couldn’t

He was smoothing out next door

Uncle Don couldn’t

He was down at the telephone plant

Monnie wouldn’t

She had a cherry pie in the oven

But mamma would

And up we’d go

Down Cumberland road

To turn and go up by

Bluefield Beaver High

to see everyone way down there

as Aunts and Uncles and Cousins

And friends below. 

And so it was in that Bluefield October Sky. 

Reunion

 Reunion

john clare

At first he said he wasn't going

By now he should be retiring

Having made it finally...

And not working at sixty,

Driving for a living.

What kind of cloak could 

he pick?

One that would hide where

All the years continued to

stick,

Lingering years from lithe 

times of being lean,

Fitting in places he only

dreamed!  how now?

And the old flames,

would they even recognize

what it was in him that 

once drew them?

Causing them to give their

Promises to him,

meeting at some out for the

evening parents home,

doing things never since done.

Would they still wear the 

braces and beads?

Wave the pom pons and 

twirl the batons

tauntingly?

Hide yet their unrequited 

Love for him?

Never flaming out after all the years?

Probably not.

Caught up in the grand babies

praising, 

their own husbands providing

now this love to them.

Splendid lives.

How dare this old hurdling

hoopster crash the reunion!

All was going so well,

Not dwelling upon the past.

18

 Has it been

Eighteen years

Since we met

At the Deep Creek bridge?

I ponder Betty

And all my other friends 

One day 

I must meet at the bridge

Maybe Betty

Will too. 

Were I

 Were I a cloud

Said the bird

Were I a bird

Said the cloud

Were I too

Said the man