Tag Archives: Barbara Crooker

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Ultra Sounds Monday February 20, 2012

Good morning all. It is a sunny, crisp winter day in Southern Ontario and everything is sparkling.

Today I bring you the last part of the Barbara Crooker/Irene Miller poetry/photography duet. It has been a pleasure to bring together the works of these two talented creatives and I hope that perhaps they have inspired you to pick up pen or camera (or paint brush or video camera). We welcome new submissions all the time.

If you want to learn more about Barbara and read more of her poetry, please check out her website at http://www.barbaracrooker.com

To see more of Irene’s photography you can find her at http://www.imillerphoto.com

Please see the Ultra Sounds Mondays archives on the left for the first three parts of this series.

Sam

 

REQUIEM

by Barbara Crooker

It is early March, each day a little bit greener,

crocus and snowdrops already in bloom, daffodils

sending up the tips of their spears.

When summer comes, we will take you to the river,

trickle your ashes through our fingers.

You will return to us in rain and snow,

season after season, roses, daisies, asters,

chrysanthemums.  Wait for us on the other side.

The maple trees let go their red-gold leaves in fall;

in spring, apple blossoms blow to the ground

in the slightest breeze, a dusting of snow.

Let our prayers lift you, small and fine as they are,

like the breath of a sleeping baby.  There is never

enough time.  It runs through our fingers like water

in a stream.  How many springs are enough,

peepers calling in the swamps?  How many firefly-spangled

summers?  Your father is waiting on the river bank,

he has two fishing poles and is baiting your hook.

Cross over, fish are rising to the surface,

a great blue heron stalks in the cattails,

the morning mist is rising, and the sun is breaking

through.  Go, and let our hearts be broken.

We will not forget you.

 

 

ON THE RIVERBANK

by Irene Miller

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Ultra Sounds Monday, February 13, 2012

For those of you who may be new to the blog, Monday is a very special day here at Ultra Sounds. Every Monday we publish a creative work by someone who has a connection to cancer.  It’s not just patients that submit, but friends, family, service providers and health care providers. Anyone who feels they have a connection is welcome to share their experience.

You don’t have to be a professional to submit something,  in fact we hope that this site will be a platform for experimentation – a chance to test the waters of sharing your creative works.  See the column on the left for submission guidelines and to see the archive of previous submissions.

Today’s submission is the third part in the Barbara Crooker/Irene Miller series. Barbara has given me permission to post a series of four of her poems that she wrote while a friend was dealing with cancer.

To read more poetry by Barbara Crooker, click here. To see more photography by Irene Miller, click here.

Until next time

Sam

 

 

SHE TELLS THE DEALER, THREE MORE CARDS

by Barbara Crooker

A thin sickle moon hangs in the western sky

over the house where my friend used to live.

Her blood count decreases, as cancer deals

her another bad hand.  Her backbone is turning

to ivory dust; her platelet counts diminish

in spite of transfusions.  The sky is a vault

of black ice; the starry dust of the Milky Way

flung over our heads, Wisconsin to Pennsylvania.

She is buying new clothes for spring, a ring

of blue topaz to wear at night.  She has backed

dark horses before, long shots going out at 100:1,

and won.  She plays blackjack, shoots craps, gets comped

at Reno.  Even though these odds are stacked

for the dealer, the house, she keeps on playing,

rolls the dice, rattles them bones.

 

 

Starry dust by Irene Miller

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Ultra Sounds Monday, February 6, 2012

Today is the second in a four-part series pairing poetry and photography.

The poem is  by the amazing Barbara Crooker. The quartet being presented on Ultra Sounds over these four weeks is part of a larger body of work, written during the time a close friend was struggling with cancer. You can find more about Barbara  here.

The photo was taken by Irene Miller, an exceptional photographer from Stratford, Ontario. For this series she has captured images  to accompany each of the four poems.  See more of Irene’s work here

Sam

 

 

 

FOR A FRIEND LYING IN INTENSIVE CARE WAITING FOR HER WHITE BLOOD CELLS TO REJUVENATE AFTER A BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT

by Barbara Crooker

The jonquils.  They come back.  They split the earth with

their green swords, bearing cups of light.

The forsythia comes back, spraying its thin whips with

blossom, one loud yellow shout.

The robins.  They come back.  They pull the sun on the

silver thread of their song.

The iris come back.  They dance in the soft air in silken

gowns of midnight blue.

The lilacs come back.  They trail their perfume like a scarf

of violet chiffon.

And the leaves come back, on every tree and bush, millions

and millions of small green hands applauding your return

 

 

 

Applauding Your Return” by Irene Miller

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Ultra Sounds Monday, January 30

Today’s submission is the first of an exciting four-part series. The poetry comes from a women named Barbara Crooker, a talented and  accomplished poet from the U.S.  I have fallen in love with  many of Barbara’s poems.   (www.barbaracrooker.com)  The four featured poems are taken from a collection that Barbara wrote about a close friend who was diagnosed with cancer .

Irene Miller, a talented and accomplished photographer from Stratford, Ontario has created a picture to accompany each poem. ( http://www.imillerphoto.com/)

Enjoy part I of this powerful duet.

Sam

 

 

FAITH

By Barbara Crooker

When my friend calls, long distance, early one Saturday morning,

I listen, knowing there’s something wrong, think it’s her

eighty year old mother, surely not her, she’s younger than I am,

only forty.  When she says, “I have breast cancer,” there’s a quiet

on the line, as I search for something to say.  And then she

tells me it’s spread to her spine, and there are no words for this.

 

And because there is nothing I can do, I go out to the garden,

dig the hard March ground, turn over ice crystals in the cold dark

soil, and plant peas, little grey pebbles, tuck them in with a slap

and a chink that might be a substitute for prayer.

 

For in spite of everything, June will come again, and those little

pairs of leaves will make their run for it, ladder up the air.

And these peas will fill their pods with sweet green praise.

 

 

Sweet Green Praise by Irene Miller