Vox Populi
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James Crews: Small Moments
The world is not made only of sorrow
and heartbreak. Something always
slips through the gaps of a given day—
dew, for instance, clinging to blades
of grass newly risen from the lingering
sleep of winter, those droplets soaking
your boots and the legs of your jeans
as you pass through, as proof that you
are here, and belong to this planet.
If that’s not enough, then I give you
buttered sourdough toast smeared
with as much strawberry jam as that
bread can hold, and the first bite
whose burst of summer returns you
to the body, where small moments
like these are stored, like nutrients
leaves pull from the sun as soon
as it breaks through storm clouds,
filling the cracks with gold.
Copyright 2023 James Crews. Originally published in Poetry East.
James Crews’s books include Bluebird (Green Writers Press, 2020) and The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy (Storey Publishing, 2022).
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Soaking in this poem, I can breathe again and step into the day. Thank you, James, for this life giving moment.
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Beautiful!
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Thank you James. Thank you, Michael.
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And thank you, Laure-Anne!
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Another beautiful poem, James ✨Lovely to read this Sunday morning🌞
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Oh, I’m tasting that butter and sourdough and strawberry jam and then there are the snow peas and sweet corn in the garden that never make it up the stairs because they taste so good in their natural surroundings.
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Yes!
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I was lucky to attend a reading James recently gave from his new book, Kindness Will Save the World. His presence and his words were a much needed balm … thank you James
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Yes, James’s work is what we need now.
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