The Sacred in the Quotidian
Fall, 2005
Barbara Crooker
Books Reviewed In The New York Times,
Sunday, June 9, 2002
When I Was a Girl, summers stretched forever;
Back Then, all those hours were my own, tall cool
tumblers waiting to be filled. I’d bike to the library,
Nancy Drews and Bobbsey Twins, their blue cardboard covers
faintly musty, stacked to the top of the wire basket that hung
over the fat front tire. Deep in the Shade of Paradise, how could I know
I was Creating a Life of words, what I needed to bring me Across Open Ground,
where The Sound of Trees talking to each other was conversation enough.
Due dates were stamped with a rubber wheel, inked from a black pad.
Some books, I couldn’t return on time, paid the fine with my own allowance.
Years later, my first child was born, then died, on her due date.
Books were my salvation. Nothing Remains the Same. Walk Through Darkness.
Previously appeared in print in Smartish Pace.