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April 2022
Barbara Crooker
bcrooker@ptd.net / www.barbaracrooker.com
Bio Note: This poem is about what happened in Syria, so substitute the Ukraine. Women and children are always the ones who suffer.

Poem Ending With a Line From a Workshop, Cincinnati, Ohio
Spring 2017

April, and the hills are smeared with pastel chalks:  mauve redbuds,
hopeful green leaves, a scene that might have been painted by Odilon
Redon.  In Syria, the hills are ripe with bombs, further denuding 
a country in crisis. Here, early tulips flicker, light up the town square.
There, children search the rubble for what's edible.  How can we believe
in spring, when we can no longer trust our own government,
the one rising from a swamp of lies?  The rocket's red flare,
tulips bursting in air.  Children with kites in a green park.
Children on stretchers, poisoned with gas.  Families ripped
apart.  Children searching for candy and eggs.  Children looking
for their lost parents.  The world's plenty.  The world's misery.
The possibilities for answers are ash.
from Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series),, University of Pittsburgh Poetry Press, 2019
©2022 Barbara Crooker
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL
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