{"id":133961,"date":"2023-09-02T17:21:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T21:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=133961"},"modified":"2023-09-02T17:33:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T21:33:05","slug":"last-gasp-hour-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/last-gasp-hour-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Gasp      (hour 9)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Butterflies soar to heights we can dream of<\/p>\n<p>spreading their wings in flights of fancy<\/p>\n<p>coloring their surroundings in rainbows<\/p>\n<p>of blues, greens, yellows, oranges and black.<\/p>\n<p>But when it&#8217;s burn-your-feet-through-the-sandals hot<\/p>\n<p>where the pavement dares you to fry an egg&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>a heat so intense you feel your aorta pumping<\/p>\n<p>oxygenated blood through your veins, what happens<\/p>\n<p>to the butterflies? Can they chance a landing on your arm?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Rivers of steamy sweat pour down your head<\/p>\n<p>streaking what&#8217;s left of your carefully made up face,<\/p>\n<p>mascara drips down your eyes blackening them<\/p>\n<p>making you look like the tiger-striped butterfly in flight.<\/p>\n<p>The heat rains down upon your hair, making it dank,<\/p>\n<p>strand sticks to strand, your neck wet from it all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If this is climate change, we are damned.<\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t survive global warming: the arctic melts,<\/p>\n<p>ocean waters rise, glaciers calve at speeds unknown;<\/p>\n<p>polar bears drown on ice floes unconnected to land,<\/p>\n<p>penguins are forced to abandon families&#8211;no place<\/p>\n<p>to rest or return with food.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>How much longer will our earth survive when so many<\/p>\n<p>deny climate change? Do we need more frequent floods,<\/p>\n<p>hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes tornadoes to prove it?<\/p>\n<p>I fear the mounting conflagration will destroy all<\/p>\n<p>and man is to blame.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Butterflies soar to heights we can dream of spreading their wings in flights of fancy coloring their surroundings in rainbows of blues, greens, yellows, oranges and black. But when it&#8217;s burn-your-feet-through-the-sandals hot where the pavement dares you to fry an egg&#8211; a heat so intense&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5247,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133961","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\/5247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134212,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133961\/revisions\/134212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}