The Hummingbirds of December

 

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

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.

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.

~~~

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

Life Unavoidable

This day I will arise from sleep like the sun
from the ocean
I will climb into the day
with the sun under my arm
and the moon below me
we will dance oh bright happiness
oh deep beautiful you
we will swim in rivers of spring's last flowers
take my hand
come with me
listen
believe.

In all things we will allow the heart to wander
the child beside us
wonder-filled
open
holding all things
and nothing
willing to walk in pain
unafraid of falling
for to love is to risk all things
I have found loving you.
Wounded at times by compassion
the thought of losing you
the dark how it crowds in
just as floods carve away
at fields and mountains.

Yet, I would love you
in spite of all these things.
To be alive and to feel is the spirit's passion.
Unavoidable. Thrilling.
Real. Yes, real.

~~~

c2014 T.L. Stokes (all rights reserved)

New Poem at Stirring: "Reading Marvin Bell"
by T.L. Stokes

Click here:

Stirring - A Literary Collection

Beautiful photograph by Clay Wardlaw
and interesting new work this month at Stirring.
Enjoy!!

Mandela's Mouse

Mandela's Mouse

Nelson

I believe you will slip away from us

when no one is looking,

hungry world, unfinished children,

one night like any other.

No fist rants the door,

no flash of light

no bars left on windows;

unnoticed, the idea of time

removes itself

like a mouse,

after finishing the last speck

of the last crumb of bread,

without turning

or needing a thing

tiny feet

hurry away.

We never know

where your eyes will open next.

Once slipped

from antiqued pages

the note falls,

yet the book of your body

does not miss the words

of your life.

Nelson before you go

tell me a story.

Please don't say a word.

Let me sit in the chair by the bed

the room filling with lightning bugs, moths,

an old eagle.

The rattler’s tail shivers

and drums in the distance.

You let go of us

as your breath seems to be something we need

more than you do.

You stand with the sheet around your shadow

burned by a soft light

as with all good ghosts

gone while the getting is good.

by T.L. Stokes

c2013 T.L. Stokes (all rights reserved)

Environmentally Critical Land - Seattle Department of Planning & Development

Invitation to Beauty and a Warning

A tree stands on the edge of a gentle park-like parcel
of land, across the street a swamp full of brush, water
and trees (one of those special places wildlife loves)
points outward toward Union Bay.

When we arrive, I stand on a sidewalk catching my
first glimpse of a well-established eagle nest in a tall tree.
Within minutes a bald eagle flies in from the waterfront
and lands nearby, immediately opening its wings to dry.
It moves to another tree as if to find a little more sunlight
behind the gray overcast sky. Soon it flies to the nest tree
perching near the very top, again opening its wings,
as if in prayer.

About half of the nest has recently fallen part way down the tree.
A local resident said there have been no big wind storms lately.

This time of year as eagles return to their nests, they will begin
bringing courtship gifts of large and small sticks and together rebuild
and strengthen the nest to be ready for egg-laying the coming year.

This parcel of beautiful land is in the review stages for a full
subdivision into 82 parcels, platting of new streets, and adding
126,500 cubic yards for grading. This is the sign posted at the
entrance where there is a new gate and fencing.

Seattle Department of Planning and Development is conducting
an environmental review.The comment period ended 12/15/13
but may be extended to 12/29/13.This is considered an
environmentally critical area. You can contact Seattle
Dept of Planning and Development at (206) 684-8467
or email PRC@Seattle.gov.

As we looked over the sweep of grassy fields, small ponds and
trees, there was an abundance of smaller birds in trees and bushes.
The bald eagle flew from the nest tree out over the swamp toward
Union Bay. More stories to come!

Frozen Rose

Frozen Rose

Roses of memory
transform themselves
inside the room of new seasons,

just as love
always the same
constantly changes.

 

 

 

 

by T.L. Stokes

 

 

 

 

c2013 T.L. Stokes (all rights reserved)

Song of Solomon: the Eclectus

Song of Solomon

 

Last night the sky opened its hands

in the dark and a monsoon poured over the cottage.

From gutters rivers flowed,

spitting and moaning.

 

We rose up out of our beds to watch

Indians drumming.

 

the same spectacular moment

God held Mojo in the dark of another room

of too much light.

 

Holds her still though the parrot

in its cage imagines a shackle

and sings for what it understands

is missing.

 

The larger the heart, the greater its light shines.

 

In her room that is too white for winter

bald eagles keep gathering.

The hurried nurse shoos with her arms back and forth

but they won't listen.

 

You would think it's a salmon run

but the pinks aren't due till December.

 

Although none of this

makes sense to us now,

eagles perch to tell us something:

 

like worry is a pastime not suited for royalty,

and God blesses the open-mouthed who sing,

or take a moment to imagine the Wilson,

its bald and good natured company.

 

Mojo--in her little boat of unfurling sails,

we pray the wind will not find--

smiled at that.

 

by T.L. Stokes

 

 

 

c2013 TL Stokes (all rights reserved)

 

God goes into Dark Places

 

 

 

August

always gets like this,
kind of breathless
by the end.

Leaves begin to hang heavy

under the weight of simmering sun.
Narrow saplings,
lacey cedars,
wide wise maples

write many books,

and when their pages begin to burn
words fly--

--and fall,

thus God

goes into dark places
dreaming of new things.

Consider the worm

testing for a softer consistency
in space between mass,  
cracks, and twigs, and harder things,
leaving moist paths.

Think of sow bugs in armor,
spiders on the roof
and all that’s under,

the sound of all the material

of the physical realm
finally losing its borders,

our names sinking into the ground,

our faces pressing the mud,

our breath rising.

All things fall from gravity, here.
In the end the air coming from us
is the only thing going up
before seeds open.

Before ice creeps with many voices

into bulging streams.

Consider if you fear the end of summer,

life without fall.
How weary life if all things
lived on without emotion,
bored with perfection,
never an old dog,

or a dirt road to follow.

Give me the fog
and her gray ghosts
thinning into invisible
when early sunflower
combs trees.

Rest without effort

is like a child never gaining wisdom.

Who can follow a road without hills,

would hunger egg you on
without fire inside your eyes?

Let your gaze fall into the details,

speak the story behind
every bright occurrence.
Life is brief, a fish with rainbows and thunder.
A song, made up as you go along,
like we sing to babies.

Where is the ruby tucked?

Where are the lost things
coming back to you?
Here. Here.
Here.

Consider before you go

home is closest
when mind is wide
and unsearching,

remember the child of your eyes
and fingers when everything was new.

God goes into dark places

putting all the pieces of you
into many pockets;
you the little clay.






c2013 T.L. Stokes (all rights reserved)

                                                                           

Rowboat in the Black Sea



Last night in the black sea
on a rowboat slowly heading
for the Dreamtime

I dreamed my father and I
walked together

until we reached the end of a line
of people
saying goodbye

and sitting on a couch
to our left

sat my mother.

I floated like you do in the land of dreams
opening my arms

embracing
with everything that is me

knowing father
still stood quietly
by my side.

What did the heart say in the moment
facing his wife the beloved departed?

Such questions
you need not ask nor wonder

for upon waking
answers are never words.




For my father, brother and sisters,
she looked good.

Spirit of the Teacher



In the glorious day of the eagle
while the watchers danced and prayed
I asked the teacher:

Do you remember
when we talked about grief,
Norfolk happened the next day

and then we talked about balance
and the white egg cracked so its voice
could come to us,

and then we talked about Hope,
and honesty and patience,
and you taught us another thing
about the position of life

and possibility of death,
and you held onto us,
teaching in silence and words
typed into the white spaciousness
of the universe.

And you waited with us
as we played Native chants
and Enya
and prayed.

Then in the silence of the great mystery
a little life was spilled
into our eyes.

Alexandra Morton--new abundant vision
of all people--hatchling,
and now AJL you honor us
and vigilant more than most,
you count the small things
noting that all miracles

can be held and charted and
marveled over.

Above all, that these finer things
from a spirit who must love us
more than we will ever understand,
are gifts

to be shared. Teacher
in the treetops. Pointing a finger
into the darkness

for the watchers
in the woods.






for AJL