Here, there’s no circle, only the spiral, endlessly turning back on itself. No straight lines, only curves, coiling, looping. There’s no direct path to the Kingdom of Heaven; it’s circuitous, echoing the barrow graves of Newgrange, indecipherable swirls, zigzags, lozenges. Knots without end, alpha and omega, merged. Lines that refuse…
Barbara CrookerSeptember 1, 2016
a found poem Imagine sitting for hours at a slant desk, copying on rough parchment with a sharpened quill, day after lonely day. Of course you’d be tempted to write in the margins: “That’s a hard page and a weary work to read it.” “New parchment, bad ink; I say…
Barbara CrookerSeptember 1, 2016
JANUARY 2012: POETRY by Barbara Crooker The goldenrod's tarnished and dull, gone to rust, as the Dow Jones plummets like the mercury on a January night, echoing Frost's warning that nothing gold can stay. Not the birch leaves that glittered like sequins on a tap line, not the marigold's…
Barbara CrookerOctober 30, 2014
MARCH/APRIL 2014: POETRY by Barbara Crooker Liturgy for March So, here you come again, scratching the ground with your thin green nails. Go ahead, unbutton your purple robe, let us see clear into your golden heart. Let us believe in the resurrection of the earth. Forgive us now our unbelief.…
Barbara CrookerMarch 1, 2014
NOVEMBER 2012: POETRY by Barbara Crooker NOVEMBER This tufted titmouse at the feeder, all perky peak and bright eyes, is the mirror image of the sky overhead, breast of gray feathers, orange smear of sun going down behind the clouds. Even though the oily sunflower seed is low, he keeps…
Barbara CrookerNovember 1, 2012
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2008: POETRY by Barbara Crooker Prayer in Autumn Turn me to gold, Lord, burnish me; strip me of chlorophyll, all those green thoughts. Let me brown and dry, crisp as old vellum; let me sail a long way across the green lawn. Spin and skitter, the final dance, one…
Barbara CrookerAugust 1, 2008