Vox Populi
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Barbara Crooker: For My Grandchildren
For My Grandchildren
I am so sorry. We tried, but the wrong people
were elected. We tried, but no matter how much
we recycled, the mountains of plastic grew. As did
the gyre in the North Atlantic. And then there were
microplastics in all our food. We put solar panels
on our roof, your grandfather and I, but did it make
any difference? We noticed how hot summers
were getting, but was there any urgency?
Now fire has been granted a season of its own,
along with hurricanes. Add in tornados
and earthquakes, and no part of the country is safe.
I’m sorry. The polar bears are going, along with the bees.
We failed to convince Big Ag to give up its addiction
to glyphosate and monoculture farming, oceans
of golden grain with nary a weed in sight.
No milkweed for monarchs; how we miss
their stained-glass wings. And fireflies,
whose tiny green sequins decorated summer
nights. The moon, unobscured by hazardous
air, took center stage in the star-spangled sky.
We sat on the porch swing in the fragrant dark
scented by roses and lilies, knowing we were
about to lose everything, but powerless to stop it.
~~~~
A Congregation of Grackles
It is the season of no return, winter not done
with us, spring yet to arrive. Scruffy lawns
turn a little greener; daylight preens, spreads
its feathers. Grackles fan their wings,
clatter and clack in the maple trees,
making a racket that passes for song.
Startled, they pour out of the woods,
a long black scarf unwinding
in the cold west wind.
Their raucous talk, a thousand fingernails
scratching on glass or a chalkboard,
shreds the air. Black cross stitches,
embroidering the blue bunting sky,
they are the X, the unknown quantity
in every equation. They mark the spot
where we cross the equinox,
the resurrection of the woods,
moving from darkness
into the light.
~~~~
Copyright 2026 Barbara Crooker. “A Congregation of Grackles” is from Radiance (Word Press, 2005)
Barbara Crooker (born 1945) is a highly prolific and award-winning American poet known for her lyrical exploration of nature, family, art, and the human condition. Based in Pennsylvania for over 40 years, she has published over 1,200 poems in more than 700 journals and anthologies.
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What perfect poems for the vernal equinox. Wonderfully written and spot-on in their observations and laments.
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Yes, I love Barbara Crooker’s poems, and she is extremely prolific. She has published over 1400 poems!
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I love Barbara’s poems, even when they break my heart. That’s also why I love them.
I look into the faces of my Literature and the Environment students–oh!
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Yes, I often feel that we failed the young people by allowing tyrants to take over the world and oligarchs to ruin nature.
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Thank you, Lisa.
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The last word here in Congregation of Grackles is “light.” The last word in Lisel Mueller’s A Grackle Observed from her book AliveTogether is also “light”. Each poem is inspiring in our dark times. The two poems make a lovely pair, and pin much inspiration on the shine of a grackle. And our transcendent aftermath of viewing it. Shoutouts to Crooker and the late Lisel Mueller.
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Thank you, Jim. I hadn’t noticed that the two poems converge in their endings.
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Wow, I hadn’t noticed this, either!
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I have loved every poem I’ve ever read by Barbara Crooker. These too. How is it that something as sad as “For My Grandchildren ” somehow makes me feel… what is it, exactly… solace? awe? could it be hope?
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Solace. Awe. Hope. Yes. All of the above.
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Simply put: I love and trust Barbara’s poems. Very much.
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yes, me too!
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Gosh, Jennifer, thank you so very much!
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And thank YOU, Laure-Anne, a fellow writer whose poems I love and trust as well!
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God, that’s a killer poem
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Yes, it is, Ann. Barbara is one of my favorite poets.
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Bless you, Ann, for saying this. Missed you at AWP!
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Thank you for these poems! “For My Grandchildren” breaks my heart with its truth. Al Gore called it so many years ago. It’s an inconvenient truth for too many in this country (especially) to alter their lifestyles, but even more for our ultra-capitalistic society to demand corporate accountability.
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Exactly! Living close to the earth is difficult if you’ve not done it before.
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Indeed, Al Gore called it. But we didn’t listen. . . .
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Always delighted to see poems by Barbara, and today at this moment of equinox, of the shift of seasons, she gives us a poem of deep sadness, balanced with the image of grackles, ‘moving from darkness into the light’. Our grandchildren have lost much, yet there will continue to be poetry to sustain us all.
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Barbara’s poems are a delight, and as you say there’s terrific range of emotion much like grackles moving from darkness into light.
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Thank you for these kind wods, Jan.
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words
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The landscape with its grackles, the heartscape of two poems amidst glyphosate, aka Roundup, eradicating fish and harming the earth. Poems that heal this morning, like grackles with raucous talk. But the grackles that once dropped onto my lawn, strutting and gamboling are long gone. Still, the squirrels eye me. If my lawn is a paradigm for the earth, it goes on, but with fewer wings, and more nuts buried. Ravenous rabbits have girdled the bushes, so the resident cardinals will now lose their favorite place to nest.
Yet, like Barbara Crooker, I feed the attempts some humans still keep offering to rejuvenate our shared places. Spring in these northern climes always brings its lust for life. But every year the winters turn more and more barren. It may be from poetry that regeneration comes, along with the shoots of April. In spite of the trolls and faux mystagogues.
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So well said, Jim. Thank you.
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Here is the sonnet Copilot on Microsoft Word wrote for me about Grackles, with no hints from me, just to write a sonnet on grackles:
Sonnet on Grackles
An Ode to the Blackbird of the Urban Sky
Upon the city’s edge, the grackles call
With voices crisp as morning’s icy air,
They gather on the wires and rise, then fall,
A swirling dark above the thoroughfare.
Their feathers shimmer blue beneath the sun,
A cloak of midnight laced with hidden light,
In crowds they move as if they’re all but one,
Yet each alone, a shadow taking flight.
They thrive where man’s inventions meet the tree,
Bold survivors of cement and steel and glass,
Each song a testament to being free,
Unbowed by fleeting seasons as they pass.
O grackles, paradox of wild and tame—
In every city heart, you stake your claim.
CoPilot on Microsoft Word. This is what it produced in about 5 seconds, adding the subtitle, its own decision. And it has no copyright on it.
3/23/2026
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Hmmmm, very disturbing.
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Thanks, Jim. I agree with every word you wrote above.
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“I am so sorry. We tried, but the wrong people were elected. We tried, but no matter how much we recycled, the mountains of plastic grew. As did the gyre in the North Atlantic.” And yet, there is still spring.
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Thank you!
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This day with its birds and the squirrel family and the chipmunk I am in my ADU behind my son’s house aware of my luxury as I gradually move from my house of things to my small house of only what is really important. His light is on in the window between the cactus, the desert scene he painted for my pleasure, and I do not know if my grandkids have left for school. I am aware of my fortune, but furious that there are grandmas grieving amid rubble. I now see a furry tail hanging below the bird/ squirrel feeder and a bright eye above. So easily I allow distraction from the unbearable. I have put out sliced in half oranges and grape jelly for the orioles, the finches have expressed their disdain for the new food so it’s back to the one with less corn. The corn, come to think of it, is probably genetically modified. Roundup most likely had something to do with my late husband’s Parkinson’s. The squirrel takes a bite and checks me out through the window the dives in again. Morning brain dump. Tashi must be in my son’s house. What horror will appear on my screen today when I log out of this friendly place where I have been rambling.
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I’ve done this move (am now in a retirement community); it’s not easy, but once you’re done, I think you’ll love the freedom it affords–
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Thanks, lovely poem. Grackles inspire me; give me hope for some strange reason.
“……rescued, again, by one with a scratching voice;
compelling a lifting of chin, a prying away of eyes
from ground, from monitored, measured steps;
I search the canopy for Joy: There! She lingers!“
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Thanks for this, Leo. It’s nice to see you here again. It’s been a while.
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I know, I have an inexplicable fondness for grackles as well–
Thanks, Leo!
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Thank you, thank you for this entry into Spring, even with the knowledge of our transgressions, these poems bring light.
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Yes. Thanks, Luray.
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Thanks, Luray!
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Tears came as I read for my grandchildren. Thank you for sharing this, Michael.
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Yes, I love Barbara’s poems. They move me deeply.
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Thank you so much!
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Barbara: I cast my lot with your’s, as we all must, to join in this apologia, to the ones who won’t even know what is gone—What we lost of our’s and their’s. Even the most well-meaning of us are complicit, comfort is in the equation, humanness, fear, desire even hope. You’ve said it for us this moment and we will continue to say, dream, regret, and weep these things all over until we are no more. I’m grateful for what I know of the Earth. It is perfect and with or without us, will always go on no matter how many exquisite things we erase. I attach my faith to this regarding things of this world.
PS Bless them noisy, indefatigable grackles, worthy of such a wonderful poem! We have them here, and in the Yucatan they speak Mayan!
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Thanks, Sean. Your many comments in these pages are a blessing.
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I always love your comments, Sean!
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