when the wagon wheel broke<\/p>\n
they stopped<\/p>\n
for good<\/p>\n
no one had the heart anymore to go on<\/p>\n
this place would be enough<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the fire tender started the first fire<\/p>\n
using small sticks and leaves that the children gathered<\/p>\n
and larger logs that the older children carried together<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the fire tender drew a circle around the fire<\/p>\n
and no one could enter without her permission<\/p>\n
“mother, may I?”<\/p>\n
“yes, I see you, I know you are safe, yes, you may”<\/p>\n
and she watched<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the fire tender kept buckets of water nearby<\/p>\n
and the thickest blanket for smothering<\/p>\n
the tools of safety<\/p>\n
in case she should fail<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the fire tender always smelled like smoke<\/p>\n
work fire smoke;<\/p>\n
as the village grew<\/p>\n
all fire descended from the first fire<\/p>\n
the kitchen fires<\/p>\n
the blacksmith fires<\/p>\n
the fires that burned the dead animal carcasses that died from sickness<\/p>\n
the fires that burned the weeds off the fields<\/p>\n
the candles in the bedrooms where babies were born, or children read books<\/p>\n
the wedding fires and other village liturgy fires<\/p>\n
all fires knew the fire tender was their mother<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the fire tender’s heart beat<\/p>\n
fanning the flames<\/p>\n
of the first fire, the work fire<\/p>\n
pumped the essential life blood of fire through the veins and ventricles of the village<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the fire tender welcomed the story teller into her home<\/p>\n
and together the two women lived<\/p>\n
keepers of the flame of fire and story<\/p>\n
creators of light and life and passion<\/p>\n
both smelling of smoke<\/p>\n
and tending the flames<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Prompt for Hour Fifteen:<\/p>\n
Write a poem about the heart. But don\u2019t focus on the heart as a metaphor, focus on it as a reality. For example the function the heart serves in the body, or heart monitors, etc.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
when the wagon wheel broke they stopped for good no one had the heart anymore to go on this place would be enough the fire tender started the first fire using small sticks and leaves that the children gathered and larger logs that the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":803,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25741","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\/803"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25876,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25741\/revisions\/25876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}