{"id":5725,"date":"2015-02-02T23:58:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T04:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=5725"},"modified":"2015-02-03T01:48:11","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T06:48:11","slug":"bloggers-silent-poetry-reading-barbara-crooker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=5725","title":{"rendered":"bloggers’ silent poetry reading: barbara crooker"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend marked the ninth annual Bloggers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. (I admit to no longer being fully sure of what day it’s supposed to be. We all started on Feb. 2, but it seems to have migrated to the 1st over the years. I am a traditionalist on this issue and always participate on the 2nd.) You can find links to other poems on the festival’s Facebook<\/a> page.<\/p>\n

Ordinary Life<\/strong>
\n      ~Barbara Crooker<\/p>\n

This was a day when nothing happened,
\nthe children went off to school
\nwithout a murmur, remembering
\ntheir books, lunches, gloves.
\nAll morning, the baby and I built block stacks
\nin the squares of light on the floor.
\nAnd lunch blended into naptime,
\nI cleaned out kitchen cupboards,
\none of those jobs that never gets done,
\nthen sat in a circle of sunlight
\nand drank ginger tea,
\nwatched the birds at the feeder
\njostle over lunch’s little scraps.
\nA pheasant strutted from the hedgerow,
\npreened and flashed his jeweled head.
\nNow a chicken roasts in the pan,
\nand the children return,
\nthe murmur of their stories dappling the air.
\nI peel carrots and potatoes without paring my thumb.
\nWe listen together for your wheels on the drive.
\nGrace before bread.
\nAnd at the table, actual conversation,
\nno bickering or pokes.
\nAnd then, the drift into homework.
\nThe baby goes to his cars, drives them
\nalong the sofa’s ridges and hills.
\nLeaning by the counter, we steal a long slow kiss,
\ntasting of coffee and cream.
\nThe chicken’s diminished to skin & skeleton,
\nthe moon to a comma, a sliver of white,
\nbut this has been a day of grace
\nin the dead of winter,
\nthe hard cold knuckle of the year,
\na day that unwrapped itself
\nlike an unexpected gift,
\nand the stars turn on,
\norder themselves
\ninto the winter night.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This poem reminds me of the final scene in Our Town<\/em>, when Emily begs to return to earth for just one last time and she finds herself looking in on a morning, which, she realizes, is spectacular in its ordinariness.<\/p>\n

It’s rare to be able to appreciate the gift of an uneventful day\/afternoon\/hour as it’s occurring, but Crooker does it magnificently.<\/p>\n

In previous years, I have shared poems by William Stafford<\/a>, Mary Oliver<\/a> (twice<\/a>), Wislawa Szymborska<\/a>, Stuart Dischell<\/a>, Jean Esteve<\/a>, John Frederick Nims<\/a>, Grace Paley<\/a>, Heather McHugh<\/a>, and Barbara Hamby<\/a>, all of which I stand by as solid choices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend marked the ninth annual Bloggers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. (I admit to no longer being fully sure of what day it’s supposed to be. We all started on Feb. 2, but it seems to have migrated to the 1st over the years. I am a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts"],"yoast_head":"\nbloggers' silent poetry reading: barbara crooker - sprite writes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=5725\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"bloggers' silent poetry reading: barbara crooker - sprite writes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This weekend marked the ninth annual Bloggers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (Silent) Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. 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