This had been a difficult week, us at cross purposes,
spring lagging behind, dragging its feet, and days
on end of steady rain. The calendar said
t-shirts,
flip flops, sandals, but we were hunched in sweaters,
stoking the fire. And then, and I know it was not
a miracle, the rain lifted, and the grass was a jolt
of electric green. The quarrel we were nursing
evaporated like morning mist, and there,
at the feeder, after years of trying—making
nectar, slicing oranges—was a pair of orioles, startling
as if the sun decided to fly down from the sky,
a flashy splash of citrus soda in my ordinary backyard.
Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters.
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace.
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Barbara Crooker of Fogelsville, Pennsylvania is the author of four poetry collections—the most recent being
Gold (2013) which I had the honour of editing for the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade). Visit
Kingdom Poets to find out more. "Passerines" takes wing from Isaiah 55:1 & 12, from which come the poem's last two lines.
