Night walking when the night is mine
\nWhen the night is kind
\nAlways in the back of my mind
\nSome tiny part of me knows
\nThe night could slip away from me
\nBut not this night
\nThis night is not Flipside <\/p>\n
This night is honeysuckle on
\nthe warm breeze
\nThe air cool
\nBut thick
\nLike drinking flower scented tea
\nThe remnants of spring blossoms
\nStill ghosting the air
\nIt’s their fruits now that I drink in <\/p>\n
Far way a shuffling figure kicks a rock in the night
\nThey don’t see me
\nOr if they do they pay me no heed
\nThey aren’t a monster from the flipside
\nI have no need to be afraid on this night <\/p>\n
No shops are open
\nThe river calls to me
\nThe highway a beacon of terror
\na ribbon of fearful lights
\npainful, screaming
\nHowling
\nFlesh tearing monsters roaming it<\/p>\n
But the rivers sings
\nHeavy and thick
\nPouring molasses down its banks
\nHemmed in here
\nI know that <\/p>\n
This is not a good place to be
\nThe river is more likely to be flipside
\nBut it’s beauty, day or night pulls my feet
\nThe scent of ripening cherries fills my nose
\nAlong with hawthorns, apples slowly filling out their small forms
\nDill brushes my leg and crushes along with a
\ncacophony of lavender and oregano beside my front gate
\nWhere tumbling lemon and cinnamon thyme and rosemary too
\nChime in with just a hint of something that has a hint of
\nCinnamon and chocolate in one of the herbs<\/p>\n
After the hot day, their essential oils are full to bursting
\nI pinch of a few leave and let the scents linger between my fingers
\nI had forgotten I planted pineapple and chocolate oregano… divine! <\/p>\n
Down the crooked sidewalk I go
\nEnjoying that there is no need to not rush
\nAfter all, why hurry when the bloodsuckers
\nHave gone to bed and the heat of the sun has finally
\nWaned leaving a perfect summer night? <\/p>\n
Only just over a block away, I burst on the river far too soon!
\nEven this time of night, perhaps it’s the moonlight,
\nI can make out the shapes of some geese and ducks
\nCatching late night fish
\nEnjoying the date and the cool evening as much as I<\/p>\n
It’s almost silent except for the sounds of the occasional big truck
\nrumbling up the highway behind me
\nClose to the river, the light pollution starts to give way
\nI can see the dim outlines of stars
\nI know now as I know any time I get too far away from
\nThe hurley burley,
\nThat I am not meant to live in the city
\nOr even a small town
\nI’m meant for the wilds
\nI didn’t domesticate well.
\nEven though I put on a good show of the trappings of urban life
\nA country girl belongs with the trees
\nWith the stars and the animals, in the wild and tame <\/p>\n
Here, there is no wild.
\nNot, real wild.
\nThe grass is neatly cut
\nThe trees shepherded to their required spaces
\nThe grass is weed free and kept cut short
\nBut never by cows, sheep, goats or horses!
\nNot even a duck or a chicken is allowed in these sacred
\nHuman park spaces<\/p>\n
A man with a lawn mower, a weedwhacker
\nWith chemical deterants
\nComes quietly to tuck away any thistle or nettle
\nThat may upset another very different sort<\/p>\n
I sigh. It’s hard here to even find a stray branch or stone.
\nThe flowers are tucked under plastic and mulched
\nTheres never any weeds in these beds
\nThey would never grow herbs or things with ‘upsetting’ smells
\nOnly grasses and inoffensive bulbs poke their way through
\nTheir allotted space in the mulch<\/p>\n
It’s here that the flipside has it’s appeal
\nI close my eyes- but not too long
\nFor fear I forget myself and let the flipside
\nC r e e p
\nand become real
\nInstead, I rest on a perfect bench
\nUntil the streetlights start to flicker
\nAnd clouds of insects start to gather
\nThe flipside is close
\nI must return home <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Night walking when the night is mine When the night is kind Always in the back of my mind Some tiny part of me knows The night could slip away from me But not this night This night is not Flipside This night is honeysuckle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1136,5],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-101052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts","category-poetry-prompts","tag-virginia-carraway-stark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101400,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101052\/revisions\/101400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}