Vox Populi
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Barbara Crooker: Two Poems for Summer
Peaches
In pecks and bushels
at Shoemaker’s stand, they fill
the baskets with their golden heft,
their plush shoulders, handfuls
of light. Cut in wedges arranged
on a blue-glazed plate:
slices of sun in the August sky.
Take and eat, for this is the essence
of summer, given for you, in spite of
winter’s sure return, the short grey days,
the icy nights. Right now, there are wheat
fields and sweet corn, daylilies and chicory
by the dusty roadsides; in the long dusk,
fireflies decorate the grass, rise up
to meet their doubles, the stars.
Tonight, there’s fried chicken and sliced
tomatoes, hot biscuits, butter,
and peach jam. And later, you,
next to me on the rumpled
sheets, fuzz on the curve
of your cheeks and thighs,
your slick sweat on my skin.
And tomorrow, another hot one,
and that sweet juicy sun
will pop up again, staining
the horizon red, orange, gold.
~~~
Red,
red the cherries turn,
burning in the dark green sky,
a thousand suns, almost as red
as the true sun that’s going down
right now behind the mock orange
and weigela, so hot you’d think
it would sizzle, hiss
as its light’s put out
for the night.
At the heart of each cherry
there’s a pit, a stone,
an architecture of bone,
the flesh ripening
so fast, so fast.
Robins steal the cherries one by one.
And who can blame them?
Such fierce burning.
This world, red in tooth
and claw, with so much loss
sometimes you wish
your heart could turn to stone.
But still, the flesh is sweet.
Now the sky darkens, and the cherries
cannot be seen. It is one of those soft
summer nights, after a day of bake oven heat,
the air playing with the hair on your neck,
the bare skin of your arms and legs.
In the grass, fireflies rise in their sultry dance,
little love notes that flicker, that burn.
~~~
Copyright 2010 and 2005 Barbara Crooker
Peaches is from More by Barbara Crooker (C&R Press, 2010).
Red is from Radiance (Word Press, 2005).
~~~
Barbara Crooker is the author of ten full-length books of poetry, including Some Glad Morning, Pitt Poetry Series, longlisted for the Julie Suk award from Jacar Press, The Book of Kells, which won the Best Poetry Book of 2019 Award from Poetry by the Sea, and Slow Wreckage (Grayson Books, 2024). Her other awards include: Grammy Spoken Word Finalist, the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, others.
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Two delicious poems!
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Ahhhhhhh. This is the time when opening my farmbox is like Christmas when I was a child. Peaches, apricots, plums, cherries. This year I’ve learned the secret to falling asleep easily is cherries and pistachios, so cherries have become my just before bed snack. And now I must leave my chair and the birds and coffee on the deck because that special peach is calling. I love these poems.
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Oh yes, I live on fruit and fresh greens all summer!
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Thank you for those kind comments! Right after this poem posted, I drove to my favorite farm stand!
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Thank you, lovely, the ripening and sensuous fruits of Summer. Your imagery brought this Summer to me too. May you have many more days like these. May we all.
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Amen! Thank you for those kind words.
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Thank you Barbara — such delicate craft in these poems. I’ll eat a peach from the farmer’s market here in a couple of hours: so juicy, so sweet that I need to hold a paper napkin under my chin for each bite!
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Thanks, Laure-Anne! I just went to my farm stand for more peaches this morning!
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These poems warmed my heart, increased my nostalgia, here in Lima’s grey winter.
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Here in Pennsylvania, it’s finally cooler after a blistering July.
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Michael is right; it’s been almost unbearable here in Pennsylvania. But today is THE perfect summer day; wish we could bottle it and keep it forever!
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poems to whet my appetite, more than the gruel I ate for breakfast, or the sour grapes I tasted in the news. In Minnesota, peaches are dolled up for travel from distant climes, but they have hard hearts. I always enjoy biting into the Crooker verse. It’s the place to be.
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You are sure right about the sour grapes in the news! Sigh.
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I can taste every word in these poems. Beautiful.
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Thank you for your kind remarks!
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My wife brought home a bag of peaches at the beginning of the week and as always, I spied them with suspicion. Too soon? Were they? I had my first one a day later, and each morning another, almost carelessly. The last one I took on waking from my nap, yesterday afternoon, and like Barbara Crooker poems, every one was delicious and good. Being fresh out of fruit this morning, I have this soft-shouldered sure-fire ripeness to tide me over.
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Thanks, Sean. In PA, we get the beautiful large Chambersburg peaches which grow in the Cumberland Valley. The fruit tastes like history to me.
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May your days be sunny and your peaches ripe and perfect! Thank you for these kind remarks–
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