Hour Twelve: The Gathering<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cOnly one rule: Don\u2019t wear black.\u201d And so we will fly, train, drive And after we\u2019ve gathered, <\/p>\n Write about gathering with others. The specifics are up to you.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hour Twelve: The Gathering \u201cOnly one rule: Don\u2019t wear black.\u201d After an absence of eight years (despite all of the promises, the excuses, the maybe-about-next -years?) we will gather this time not to reunion (a desperate attempt to relive those younger carefree hopeful days) but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2958,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7,13,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116061","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\/2958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116132,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116061\/revisions\/116132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span>After an absence of eight years
\n<\/span>(despite all of the promises, the excuses,
\nthe <\/span>maybe-about-next -years?)
\n<\/span>we will gather
\n<\/span>this time not to reunion
\n<\/span>(a desperate attempt to relive
\n<\/span>those younger carefree hopeful days)
\n<\/span>but to celebrate a life
\n<\/span>now over.
\n<\/span>We\u2019ve all gotten older
\n<\/span>inched closer to the finish line
\n<\/span>and any attempt to ignore that
\n<\/span>is lost as we consider our losses.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>and gather.
\nWe\u2019ll talk of that wedding
\n<\/span>so many years ago \u2013
\n<\/span>champagne-fueled hilarity,
\n<\/span>dark sunglasses and pastel balloons and streamers.
\nSo much laughter.
\n<\/span>So much joy.
\n<\/span>So much love.
\n<\/span>So much future yet to be lived.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>and celebrated life,
\nand grieved,
\n<\/span>we\u2019ll part
\n<\/span>And return to our lives
\n<\/span>once again pretending there\u2019s
\n<\/span>still so much time.<\/span><\/p>\n