October 2020
Author's Note: This is another poem from Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series, 2019),
written when I was living and writing in a small (4 person) artist retreat in the southwest corner of
France. It was such an escape from the rest of the world, and I hope this handful of words will take
you there, too.
Commission
I should be writing the troubles of the world—Lord knows
we’ve got them right now— but instead, I am sitting here idly,
chronicling the journey of the clouds as they traverse
the September sky. The river unravels her slub of parachute
silk. Darting in and out, a squadron of martins,
les hirondelles de la rivage, stitch up the remnants
of this afternoon. I should be leaden with fear
and foreboding, hearing leaders hurl words like boys
in a schoolyard. But I think my job is to sit here, polished
by the sun, and let the clock of the world unwind. Trees
are murmuring the ancient tongue of leaves, and the sun’s
oven door is ajar, warming my bones. I think my back
is about to sprout wings.
Originally published in Some Glad Morning
©2020 Barbara Crooker
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