{"id":114679,"date":"2022-06-25T19:22:37","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T23:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/?p=114679"},"modified":"2022-06-25T20:10:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T00:10:11","slug":"post-9-in-the-temple-of-the-banyan-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/post-9-in-the-temple-of-the-banyan-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"post #11: in the temple of the banyan tree"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-115167\" src=\"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/buddha-banyan-1-300x169.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/buddha-banyan-1-300x169.webp 300w, https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/buddha-banyan-1-768x432.webp 768w, https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/buddha-banyan-1.webp 828w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the temple of the banyan tree<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">set within the circle of a zoo<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><em>where men were kept in tiger cages<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><em>and children held out sugar cane<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><em>to friendly elephants<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">I saw where gods lived.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the fragrant curls of incense<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><em>deeply smoked into the banyan\u2019s<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><em>ropy branching coiled walls<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">god(s) floated, whispering<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">a name I did not recognise<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">from church.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">This, I knew at once,<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">was where god(s) lived.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here among the tree\u2019s silver<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">grey limbs, cradled in its coiled branches,<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">mystery and wisdom played cards<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">bargaining for knowledge.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nothing has changed<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">although memory patinas like an amulet<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">and I am trying to remember<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">what I heard <em>so long ago &amp; far away<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">in the temple of the banyan tree<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">just beyond the boundary of childhood<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the temple of the banyan tree set within the circle of a zoo where men were kept in tiger cages and children held out sugar cane to friendly elephants I saw where gods lived. On the fragrant curls of incense deeply smoked into the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114679","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114679"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115873,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114679\/revisions\/115873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}