June 2021
Barbara Crooker
bcrooker@ptd.net
bcrooker@ptd.net
Author's Note: I offer this month’s poem in memory of my husband, Richard McMaster Crooker, who passed away at the end of April, after a long and difficult journey:
Narrative
This morning’s miracle: dawn turned up its dimmer, set the net of frost on the lawn to shining. The sky, lightly iced with clouds, stretched from horizon to horizon, not an inch to spare, and later, the sun splashed its bucket of light on the ground. But it’s never enough. The hungry heart wants more: another ten years with the man you love, even though you’ve had thirty; one more night rinsed in moonlight, bodies twisted in sheets, one more afternoon under the plane trees by the fountain, with a jug of red wine and bits of bread scattered around. More, even though the dried grasses are glowing in the dying light, and the hills are turning all the syllables of lavender, as evening draws the curtains, turns on the lamps. One more book, one more story, as if all the words weren’t already written, as if all the plots haven’t been used, as if we didn’t know the ending already, as if this time, we thought it could turn out differently.
Originally published in More (C&R Press, 2010)
©2021 Barbara Crooker
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