Vox Populi
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Barbara Crooker: When I Gave Away My Tent
Allentown Orders Evacuation of Jordan Creek Encampment (headline, 8/9/25) There is no spot to move the people staying there. . . .There’s no short- or long-term solution, and no proposal on what to do.” Riley Kruezer, Lehigh Conference of Churches
to the homeless men living down by the Jordan Creek,
I threw in Rickets Glen, its lacy waterfalls,
the trickle of water by the trailhead,
the sprezzatura of early morning birdsong
watching the mist rise from Lake Jean.
I let them have the time we camped in Maine,
nearly died canoeing in a tidal bore,
but then there were lobsters cooked on a Svea
which took an hour to come to the boil, long after
we’d finished all the wine.
Also I gave them Disney World, where not a single
palm frond touched the ground, picked up by a brown-
skinned man following the corporate policy of nothing
imperfect allowed in this manicured paradise. A pileated
woodpecker mocked us in the palmettos.
And I hope one of these men has found it useful, this home
of green ripstop nylon, not a permanent solution, but at least
some protection from sun, snow, rain in this, the very imperfect
twenty-first century where working two jobs isn’t enough to get
an apartment in a country where too much is not enough.
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Barbara Crooker
~~~
Barbara Crooker’s many award-winning books include Slow Wreckage (Grayson, 2024). She lives in Pennsylvania.
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As Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
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Yes
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Big Barbara Crooker fan here – I’ve never read a poem of hers that didn’t move me. I love the idea of this poem, both the giving of practical, temporary housing to someone who has none and the hope that the memories suffusing the tent warm its new inhabitants.
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Gosh, Penelope, thanks so much!
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I adore the poem, especially the way it tells of the tent’s biography, as it gets some new, necessary use. Stellar imagery, in a world near collapse. And a love poem of the deepest sort.
Lately, I try to bring a smile to this broken world. After my long-ago divorce, the ex-wife showed up and asked if she could have our double sleeping bag. She said, I would never need it, but she already had a willing occupant to share it with. I gave it to her, and reminded her which side had been hers, which side mine. Trite, but sometimes we need trite to help alleviate the bitter bite.
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Yes, exes can be cruel.
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Wow, that was a bit of unnecessary meanness in our already-cruel world. And you’re right; sometimes we need trite–
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Another truthful and necessary poem, Barbara. Thanks for writing it.
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How poignant and restrained — a necessary poem in these days of such overflow of presents! I was truly shocked when I overheard a woman in a restaurant loudly exclaimed to a friend: “I had SO much FUN shopping for white elephants!” Ah, how I would have loved to give her your poem, Barbara.
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I wish you could have done that (given her the poem), although I don’t think I would have had the nerve–
Thanks for the good words, Laure-Anne–
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My heart goes out to the homeless in the country of milk and honey. Your poem is capturing the pain and the longing to help without truly being able to. You gave them so much of yourself with the tent and you express it so beautifully.
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Thanks for the kind words, Rosemary!
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I hope whoever receives the generous gift of your tent will also hear the music of your poetry Barbara, equally nourishing and protective.
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Thanks so much, Jan!
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A beautiful poem, Barbara. Heartachingly beautiful.
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Thanks, Christine!
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Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Sean. It doesn’t seem like it would take a rocket scientist to solve this, and yet. . . .
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So sadly beautiful Barbara. I understand that wistfulness. Sharon washed a sleeping bag—she was going to throw away after she cleaned out the loft for our grandchildren visiting over the holiday—at my insistence, saying you must consider how important it could be to someone these days. Once washed it seemed of value, and now its rolled and stowed again, until some moment releases it to the needy world. “Seventy thousand homeless in LA,” my friend Kenny told me two nights ago during a visit, he lives there, a world traveling musician, and said he said that to someone he met in Copenhagen, a city he loves, says its a place in a country where you see and believe human culture still seems to have hope of succeeding. “I feel that way about Japan too,” he added. Meanwhile we, rich as America is, plod along dragging our craziness with us, unable to detach from any of it.
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America has adopted capitalism as the state religion, and the poor are the sinners who deserve their fate.
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The Gospel of Wealth. The rich demonstrate they are loved by God, proven by their wealth. The poor, not so much. Sickening heresy.
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Yes, Christianity has been used for many nefarious purposes and philosophies. Jesus would be appalled, I’m sure.
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