If you ever lose heart and the earth seems as distant as stars fading into the noise of your busy mind, know this. That a tiny island exists in the blue hands of the ocean. That a tree grows upright into the salted clouds. That two eagles love each other enough to spend their lives greeting the morning sun together. That two eaglets stand in their nest, gazing at the heavens. Looking down to the forever ground. They eat and sleep and flap their wings. And one day in July, one by one, they will jump into the air. They will know the difference between existing and what is beyond. They will hold onto nothing. The hurricane will come, courage catching their pinions on fire, as they mount the wind, climbing ladders into realms of the invisible.


--T.L. Stokes






Monday, December 26, 2011



Sunday, December 25, 2011






Wild Things in the Night




The committee of roosters gathers
at my ankles, the night
drifts off like a loose horse.

In my ears the coyotes' laddered song
still lingers. Wild open throated.
A language not so strange
awakens the heart,

gleefully, from a simple dream.

I wake with the sun,
the field is empty.

I look down into the petal of my hand,
and in between the fingers,
one tuft of gold-gray fur remains.





c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Matilda the Hen






Within the pink stairs of brain's
abalone a new sun rises,

within cobbled membranes
lighting the electric boundary

and in this warm darkness,
the black sea flows.

I fear I am drowning.

I fear my heart's pain.

I fear that suddenly
the weight of life
may snap the last strong fiber.

Where will my spirit go
into that eagle's sky?

I pray for safety, I pray for a moment
of solid ground,
the earth's fragrant voice
in my ear, singing "Life! Life!"

Who will save me,
how will I save myself?
I am not the single heron
rowing through the marshes,

I am one plain swan in the field of many.
We turn the horizon snowy.

Or I am Matilda, the hen who circles
with her eye in the sky,

trying to stay up with the others.





....if one day is dark,  the next must be light.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

blindness is a horse




Blindness is a horse
before it arrives,

the mesmerizing song of hoof beat
vibrating across the field;

how the grass parts
suddenly,

and moss, kicked up
into chips of black sparks

dancing away.

Dark is not dark
if you remember,
though the eyes are blind,
the heart can see,

and fog is not fog
except for clarity,
the space of air before
and above,

bordering
the softness.

Monday, December 5, 2011


Thursday, December 1, 2011



A Seed Falls in the Field


The sound of a seed which falls in the field
shatters the heart open,

grandmother maples who throw their hands
across the belly of earth

glance my way.

And I say to my daughter
the sun:

Say hello to my grandbaby Lemon.
Sing it a song today,

tell it about what you are seeing,
white frosty morning.

Play some beautiful classical music
to swim to.

Tell it we love it so much
that the colors of the world
dim slightly,

the sun turns to us,
the moon tips down,

and one still,
quiet night in May

your arms will be waiting.




for Heather and Derek
and the lovely lemon