{"id":127488,"date":"2023-09-02T09:53:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T13:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=127488"},"modified":"2023-09-02T09:53:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T13:53:21","slug":"driving-through-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/driving-through-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving through darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s Google Maps that guides us down<br \/>\nthis solitary road on our<br \/>\njourney from Portland to<br \/>\nthe Oregon Coast.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is narrow and it twists<br \/>\nthrough darkness and gloom.<br \/>\nHuge moss-covered fir branches stretch above,<br \/>\nblocking the sparkle of the sun.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">We pass decaying farmhouses and<br \/>\nI look away,<br \/>\ndetermined to avoid the certain plight<br \/>\nof the farm animals.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there is no avoiding<br \/>\nthe smell of decay or the disturbing<br \/>\nscenes of personal landfills, topped with<br \/>\ncouches and cars.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, the natural beauty here mixes<br \/>\nwith the eerie loneliness and<br \/>\nthe rusty \u201cno trespassing\u201d signs call to me,<br \/>\npromising days without interaction.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is tempting to embrace<br \/>\nthis remote chasm,<br \/>\nto lock ourselves away from<br \/>\nthe chaos and suffering of our planet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, finally, the road empties into the highway,<br \/>\nplunging us back into light,<br \/>\nand we are relieved and grateful<br \/>\nto be back in the known, uncertain world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s Google Maps that guides us down this solitary road on our journey from Portland to the Oregon Coast. It is narrow and it twists through darkness and gloom. Huge moss-covered fir branches stretch above, blocking the sparkle of the sun. We pass decaying farmhouses&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127488","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\/1287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127526,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127488\/revisions\/127526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}