James Crews: The Poetry of Connection and Joy | A Conversation with Michael Simms
My husband is a farmer, so we often wake up before first light, and I go off on my own with a big cup of coffee to scribble in my notebook for a few hours.
James Crews: We Are Constellations
So much coexists in the heart’s container,
as in a carved teak bowl on the table.
James Crews: Thank You for Everything
Walking the roads after a snowstorm,
he put out an arm to stop me
as three deer streamed down the hill
James Crews: Homeless
How do you pack up a whole house,
help your parents haul your toys thrown
in boxes from the liquor store, stuff them
in the back of the car in the middle
of the night because they can’t afford
to pay the rent they owe?
James Crews: At the Monastery
I want to ask: Would you bow
to the blown-open peony, its petals
strewn like slips of silk in the grass
after last night’s storm?
James Crews: The Trouble with Beauty
The trouble with beauty
is the clinging to it,
wanting things to stay
the way they first appeared
Michael Simms: Tootling Along
I hope you don’t mind my sharing links to my own recent publications.
James Crews: Possibility Still Exists
The smell of smoke’s now in the air,
which means a fire is not far off.
Which means something will kindle in you
if you let it
James Crews: Small Moments
The world is not made only of sorrow
and heartbreak. Something always
slips through the gaps of a given day
James Crews: I Keep the Window Open
Life’s too fragile
to waste on money or importance,
handing over the hours that will never
be returned to us.
James Crews: A Few Things I Have Learned
Watching birds will save you on a daily basis—the shaggy barred owl clinging to a pine branch with its deadly claws, eyes lazing in the glaze of a winter morning, head swiveling back and forth.
James Crews: New Year
It’s so cold on this January morning
the condensation in the corner of each window
has frozen to the glass, cannot be wiped away.
James Crews: Tomatoes
He came back grinning, gripping
a bag of homegrown Beefsteaks so fat
they were already bursting their juices
through the brown paper
James Crews: God Particles
Call them God if you must
these messengers that bring hard evidence
of what I once was and where I have been…
