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






Wednesday, December 21, 2022

The Hummingbirds of December


 

Friday, December 10, 2021

Letters of December


A letter
before it starts to wander.
Two lips pressed in silence.
Ears bending to brain’s curious child
holding one finger up
to test for wind.

I have lost the bridge to you.
The landslide brings all trees
to their knees
opens in every which way
the body
yet somehow through many
great storms
you are the tree
that survives.

Your hair grew long
while you waited.
The lower portion of your face
hides behind a mask.
My fingers play with a strand,
there is music.

Surprisingly
the nursing home allows wolves.
I am kept outside on the patio.
Green eyes slowly turn toward the door.
Before we know it
two wolves sit beside each other.

I wonder have you forgotten me?
You remember, the light comes on.
Your face is a map my fingers like to trace.
Even this morning in the northlands
that warmth stays.

I carve out my heart between us.
I offer it to you but you are no longer hungry.
We both look at a shrouded sky
wishing for sun.

The fallen leaf originates a kind of trust
before it dies.
Enough of them
produces a body of light.

I lean towards you
willing my warmth
to pink you up.
We light candles
between us.
A song bird flies overhead.

You point to the red roof of the house
two blocks away. So we talk about it;
as if we have always known that place,
as if we know the man walking
to the intersection,
as if it is a woman you know
who is coming to see you.

We become friends
and lovers
again.
You remember and smile
and touch the card with fondness.

Laughter
is a party inside us.
I forget I have to leave again,
and hope you will forgive me.

I promise to come visit the next day
and the next day and wonder if you will
remember what that means.
That I will need to leave you
and a part of me wants you to forget.

But then of course
the soul knows
and understands
and remembers
and always always loves.

One day a northern wolf heard the southern wolf's song.
So many stories later they stand here.
Two wolves testing the air.
Contently between time.

Presence is the whole of it.
They do not need to eat
or be warm.
They read the weather together.

There are no promises
between two souls.
Hunger and not hunger is the love between them.
She turns to go.
He begins to crumple a little inside.
Glaciers melt blue
on the fringes.
He turns and walks through the doorway.
As if one light turns off
and another on.

The northern wolf feels snow coming.
It runs with wind in its fur,
tirelessly easing into a lope,
face pointing towards home.

The southern wolf lies down
easing back into the place that holds him.
The poetry and flute of her words
warm and escaping.

~~~

for J.
12.4.2021

Welcome to Flood Water Photography!



This blog began in 2010...and now suddenly here it is 2022. December just before Christmas with a couple inches of snow on the ground and trees. Time to start posting photographs and poetry again.

Welcome to my sitting room. Pull up a comfy chair, your favorite warm beverage, and with perhaps a friendly cat or dog on your lap or close to your feet. Life is beautiful and rugged at times. We have the honor of feeding our soul. Hopefully you'll find rest and happiness here.

warm regards,
T.L. Stokes

12.21.2022

Friday, November 6, 2015

Starbucks on Tuesday





Wig wagging
the yellow lab
looks up at his owner
who wears a white half cap
and maroon runner's jacket
chatting with her friend
over pink tea
it pants hoping
to catch her attention.

A scent of pastries
sneaks out the door.
Yellow coat is waved away.

Earlier two round babies
bloomed from nests
of colorful blankets
their busy mother
shook two bottles
then aimed each into
their flower mouths.

She said, Sometimes I cry
and my two older sons
5 and 8 are helpful
but I miss them
since school started.
I wave away the bee
listening. One baby opened
one planetary eye
so I was quiet.

Another young mother
pushes a stroller
with a pink bundle
and two delicate sisters
one holding her book
crowd around
the baby reaching
to feel cream skin
tuck the blanket in.

Older people
mostly men
ride bikes or walk
in quickly pausing
to admire a baby
then order a drink
smiling from
newspaper faces.

Two women get up to leave
yellow coat laps his wide tongue
into a water bowl.

Each table holds a galaxy
a meteor flashes past stars
and planets circle
while over the roof
a single sun blazes.


Thursday, August 14, 2014


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Songs of the Puget Sound






2.

Yesterday
hens carried their round flouncy bodies
up into the coup,
chittering and cooing their sunshine happiness.

Something then moved out of the blackberries.
Little gift of wildness,
a cup of warmth
in a baby's coat

content,
and hardly afraid.

The hens in bed told stories
soft so soft
to each other and the hidden moon.

So I sat on the porch of the hen house
glad songs welcoming ears,
and the rabbit,
no more than a few weeks old,
nibbled the tender grass.

There is a time at the end of the most perfect day,
when the sun has been your companion,
when the air lingers full of the first few days of summer,

when there could be no more perfection
and then comes a movement,
the brown innocence,
quicker beat of heart
so far from your own.

To rise up on tiny bones and wonder,
to grasp a green stalk
taller than your head,

with no hands. Yes, no hands.
And I imagine how small its ivory
grinding as the grass and seeds slip
down into that bit of darkness.

Imagine what may come later in the long night
of larger hungers. And I wonder if it lives in fear.
And if not is this called innocence.

The ears turn to gather from this way and that
a warning, yet the air is warm and heavy. Old moon
hasn't yet climbed into its fields of stars.

And the hens, fall silent.
I leave the seed eater as we have
both reached our satisfaction.

A day like that
one hardly knows
how to write about.

~~~

Thursday, June 19, 2014


How the Boy Saved Dragons



What little voice

in darkness calls
from behind the stars
where once were walls.

From a far off land
of dragon dance
where wars were ended
and peace began.

I hail the silence
I hail the song
into crowds of hearts
the victory won.





for Tyler Robinson & Imagine Dragons


c2014 T.L. Stokes (all rights reserved)

Tyler Robinson Foundation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISpAgxW1vQw