{"id":26458,"date":"2016-08-14T01:04:10","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T05:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=26458"},"modified":"2016-08-14T01:04:10","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T05:04:10","slug":"seventeen-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/seventeen-2\/","title":{"rendered":"SEVENTEEN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>The origin of tears<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Because we began as rivers stretched supine<br \/>\nalong the slow-carve trace of sea-flow \u2014<br \/>\nbecause we stared up into the chronology of light<br \/>\nand into the faces of saurian beasts<br \/>\nwho saw in our liquid musings only themselves \u2014<\/p>\n<p>because the seasons passed over and through us<br \/>\nand we were absent volition, moved by the will of water<br \/>\nand mud, by the rain of cinders, by the slow unfurl of ferns,<br \/>\nwitnesses in that waiting to meteor and eclipse,<br \/>\nscorch of heat and frost \u2014 <\/p>\n<p>because in that great duration we could not sing<br \/>\nor laugh or point at the first crack in the egg,<br \/>\nwe could not turn toward one another or away,<br \/>\nour meager cells scarred by a battalion of abuses,<br \/>\nour glue untested, at every tide change<\/p>\n<p>threatening to split apart and wash away \u2014<br \/>\nbecause when the sea abandoned the shore<br \/>\nto a sandscape of wind, we rose in gouts of dust<br \/>\nand fell again into an unwelcoming oven<br \/>\nwhere the margin of life was too small to measure<\/p>\n<p>and invisibility equated survival \u2014<br \/>\nbecause we were so near extinction<br \/>\nbefore we had truly come into being \u2014<br \/>\nbecause we were less than dust<br \/>\nin a gully etched between lava flows \u2014<\/p>\n<p>because we recognized the hopelessness<br \/>\nof our survival, our evolution \u2014<br \/>\nat that moment we compressed all energy<br \/>\ntoward the center, as we do still,<br \/>\nand expressed our parched hopes with tears.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 <a href=\"https:\/\/chocolateisaverb.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">j.i. kleinberg<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The origin of tears Because we began as rivers stretched supine along the slow-carve trace of sea-flow \u2014 because we stared up into the chronology of light and into the faces of saurian beasts who saw in our liquid musings only themselves \u2014 because the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":721,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1227,1319,565],"class_list":["post-26458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","tag-beginnings","tag-j-i-kleinberg","tag-tears"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26458","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\/721"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26463,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26458\/revisions\/26463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}