James Land Jones

1934-1986

---

Friend, Mentor, Kindred Spirit

 

 



.....The Johnny Mercer House at Moon River where Jack and Jim lived in the early 1970s

Author of Adam's Dream: Mythic Consciousness in Keats and Yeats, Jim was also President of the Savannah Chapter of the Georgia Poetry Society, founder of the Oklahoma journal Nimrod, and a prize- winning poet. One of his best poems is

Belle Isle

Late spring and night. Rain-scented air
Surrounds us like a presence. Ahead,
Past threaded rivers, Belle Isle waits.
Beyond, St. Catherine's Sound unreels, a bolt
Of crumpled purple-silver, into the far horizon.


For months we've said we'll boat out to Belle Isle.
Now lightning plays about us in the shuttered trees.
Transparent knives of moonlight sculpt your face
Between my hands. Your eyes, grown deeper blue,
Compel my lips as birds are drawn to air.


I wait, a silk banner to be filled by you.
Give body to my body through your body.
Turn my empty cloth into a sail.
So fitted, voyager, what is Belle Isle to me?
I would explore the rivers of you all my life. 

Written "For Jack--14 Sept 1984--with love."