My mother was never a tree,<\/p>\n
nor a tree branch, nor the leaves<\/p>\n
that block the sun into shade.<\/p>\n
She was the shade itself,<\/p>\n
the cool hand that took away fevers<\/p>\n
and calmed bruises children got<\/p>\n
from playing too hard. She was born<\/p>\n
on a prairie that lacked shade<\/p>\n
except for the windbreak the CCC planted<\/p>\n
after she was born. I think that\u2019s why<\/p>\n
she appreciated the little shade there was<\/p>\n
on the prairie, and she became<\/p>\n
what she appreciated. She folded the<\/p>\n
fear of God into her skin, knew<\/p>\n
her calling was to provide balms<\/p>\n
to those who needed balm. For years,<\/p>\n
my mother dreamed of the bison<\/p>\n
that once roamed the land of her youth.<\/p>\n
A mother bison provides shade<\/p>\n
for her calves. All she has to do<\/p>\n
is stand beside them. When the grass<\/p>\n
died for lack of rain, it was the shade<\/p>\n
that sustained my mother<\/p>\n
and her sisters. They ate bowls of shade<\/p>\n
for breakfast and daydreamed of rain.<\/p>\n
Right now, my mother<\/p>\n
is the dream that runs through my mind,<\/p>\n
and everywhere she goes, her steps leave<\/p>\n
foot-shaped indentations of shade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My mother was never a tree, nor a tree branch, nor the leaves that block the sun into shade. She was the shade itself, the cool hand that took away fevers and calmed bruises children got from playing too hard. She was born on a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133368","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\/3235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133374,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133368\/revisions\/133374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}