April 2022
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
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