Barbara Crooker: For My Grandchildren
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.
Barbara Crooker: Things That Can Be Doubled
Team, time, troubles. It’s this,
or nothing. Boiler, barrel, bed, the blind’s
bind that puts us in jeopardy.
Barbara Crooker: Climbing the Eiffel Tower at Night
We climb into this ladder of light.
Barbara Crooker: When I Gave Away My Tent
…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.
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.
