Barbara Crooker: Praise Songs for Autumn
Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return.
Barbara Crooker: Coffee
Because each day
is a fresh new start, revised as the sky
after rain. Because my mug is full
of dark goodness, and the day is a clean
blank sheet.
Barbara Crooker: Patty’s Charcoal Drive-In
First job. In tight black shorts
and a white bowling shirt, red lipstick
and bouncing ponytail, I present
each overflowing tray as if it were a banquet.
Barbara Crooker: Two Poems for Summer
And tomorrow, another hot one,
and that sweet juicy sun
will pop up again, staining
the horizon red, orange, gold.
Barbara Crooker: This Summer Day
We are still ripening
into our bodies, still in the act of becoming.
Rejoice in the day’s long sugar.
Praise that big fat tomato of a sun.
Barbara Crooker: Economics 101
What if the GDP was really made up of birdsong,
the limitless arithmetic of joy?
Barbara Crooker: Credo
You can till the earth,
hoe the rows, but each seed is an act of belief
that somehow in the dark something
is happening:
Barbara Crooker: Stillbirth
Dear Supreme Court Injustices,
you who are so proud of overturning
Roe vs. Wade. Do you have any idea
what it’s like to lose a child, a wanted child,
one who never got to use her pink lungs,
take in this sweet air?
Barbara Crooker: The Vultures
Will we
recognize the bones of our constitution after they’ve been
picked clean, or will we be too baffled to recognize their white
gleaming?
Barbara Crooker: Late Painters | Matisse
When his hands could no longer hold a brush,
Matisse turned to paper and scissors, “painting”
with cold metal carving heavy gouache
shearing shallow reliefs.
Barbara Crooker: Gravy
Hand the wooden baton
to one of your daughters; it’s time for her
to start learning this music, the bubble and
seethe as it plays the score.
Barbara Crooker: Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris
Nearly fifty years ago,
in the wreckage of my first marriage, I lit
a tall white taper, prayed that my husband
would return to himself, keep our family intact,
a prayer that disappeared in the dark vaults
Barbara Crooker: Treadmill
We lift weights. We
feel great. We
do yoga. We
eat granola.
Barbara Crooker: Who Do You Carry?
On city streets, the homeless unfurl
their sleeping bags like hungry tongues.
