May 2016
Barbara Crooker
bcrooker@ix.netcom.com
bcrooker@ix.netcom.com
To misquote Claude Monet, all I really know is gardening and writing. . . .May in the perennial garden is a perpetual delight—
Pierre-Auguste Renoir -
Les baigneuses
The Hour of Peonies
The Buddha says, “Breathing in, I know I am here in my body.
Breathing out, I smile to my body,” and here I am, mid-span,
a full-figured woman who could have posed for Renoir.
When I die, I want you to plant peonies for me, so each May,
my body will resurrect itself in these opulent blooms, one of les Baigneuses,
sunlight stippling their luminous breasts, rosy nipples, full bellies,
an amplitude of flesh, luxe, calme et volupté. And so are these flowers,
an exuberance of cream, pink, raspberry, not a shrinking violet among them.
They splurge, they don’t hold back, they spend it all.
At the end, confined to a wheelchair, paintbrushes strapped to his arthritic hands,
Renoir said, “the limpidity of the flesh, one wants to caress it.”
Even after the petals have fallen, the lawn is full of snow,
the last act in Swan Lake where the corps de ballet, in their feathered tutus,
kneel and kiss the ground, cover it in light.
Published in Radiance (Word Press, 2005)
The Buddha says, “Breathing in, I know I am here in my body.
Breathing out, I smile to my body,” and here I am, mid-span,
a full-figured woman who could have posed for Renoir.
When I die, I want you to plant peonies for me, so each May,
my body will resurrect itself in these opulent blooms, one of les Baigneuses,
sunlight stippling their luminous breasts, rosy nipples, full bellies,
an amplitude of flesh, luxe, calme et volupté. And so are these flowers,
an exuberance of cream, pink, raspberry, not a shrinking violet among them.
They splurge, they don’t hold back, they spend it all.
At the end, confined to a wheelchair, paintbrushes strapped to his arthritic hands,
Renoir said, “the limpidity of the flesh, one wants to caress it.”
Even after the petals have fallen, the lawn is full of snow,
the last act in Swan Lake where the corps de ballet, in their feathered tutus,
kneel and kiss the ground, cover it in light.
Published in Radiance (Word Press, 2005)
The Iris Work in the Year's Rhythm
tunneling in the cold,
reduced to rhizomes,
wary of thaws and frosts.
Even above ground,
they remain plain:
green fans bending
about their common work.
But for one week, they bloom,
unexpected and flagrant.
And sometimes we awaken
from the dull green stalk of habit
and open out of ourselves,
luminescent in our skins.
Published in The Lost Children (The Heyeck Press, 1989)
tunneling in the cold,
reduced to rhizomes,
wary of thaws and frosts.
Even above ground,
they remain plain:
green fans bending
about their common work.
But for one week, they bloom,
unexpected and flagrant.
And sometimes we awaken
from the dull green stalk of habit
and open out of ourselves,
luminescent in our skins.
Published in The Lost Children (The Heyeck Press, 1989)
Dianthus
My mother comes back as a dianthus,
only this time, she’s happy, smelling like cloves,
fringed and candy-striped with a ring of deep rose
that bleeds into the outer petals. She dances
in the wind without her walker, nods pinkly
to the bluebells. She breathes easily, untethered
to oxygen’s snaking vines. Lacking bones,
there’s nothing left to crumble; she’s supple,
stem and leaf. No meals to plan, shop for, prepare;
everything she needs is at her feet, more rich and moist
than a chocolate cake. How much simpler
it would have been to be a flower in the first place,
with nothing to do but sit in the sun and shine.
Published in Small Rain (Purple Flag Press, 2014)
My mother comes back as a dianthus,
only this time, she’s happy, smelling like cloves,
fringed and candy-striped with a ring of deep rose
that bleeds into the outer petals. She dances
in the wind without her walker, nods pinkly
to the bluebells. She breathes easily, untethered
to oxygen’s snaking vines. Lacking bones,
there’s nothing left to crumble; she’s supple,
stem and leaf. No meals to plan, shop for, prepare;
everything she needs is at her feet, more rich and moist
than a chocolate cake. How much simpler
it would have been to be a flower in the first place,
with nothing to do but sit in the sun and shine.
Published in Small Rain (Purple Flag Press, 2014)
Rosa Multiflora
What was a good idea gone bad, using wild roses as a living fence to contain cattle.
Now they ramble unchecked, grow in waste areas, weeds, pests, nuisances.
In June, thousands and thousands of white blossoms light
my back path. They spring up everywhere, wander from the mulberries
to honeysuckle, grow up the old apple trees, cover the hillside
with brambles and blooms. Imagine them covering a castle, the nasty
task the Prince had to snip and hack his way to true
love's heart. The hearts of these roses are golden,
tiny, covered with bees. Now June pulls us fully open,
awake, this sweet heavy air, petals under our feet, on the lawn.
This is the season of transformation, when something unasked
for can turn into love. Try to get these roses out, by lopping or pesticides,
burn them with fire, level the ground. They will multiply before your eyes,
growing back stronger, thicker, thornier. We could curse the ground,
or we could praise what is there: tiny cups of honey
and cream that spill in the air.
Published in Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press, 2015)
©2016 Barbara Crooker