{"id":34039,"date":"2017-08-05T13:49:33","date_gmt":"2017-08-05T17:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=34039"},"modified":"2017-08-05T14:11:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-05T18:11:50","slug":"guarding-jan-rog-prompt-5-august-5-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/guarding-jan-rog-prompt-5-august-5-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Guarding    (Jan Rog, Prompt #5, August 5 2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>Its head resting on the crest, the lion still guards the Confederate soldiers\r\nburied in the aftermath of Civil War.\r\nNot a gargoyle spouting water, \r\nnot an angel of compassion, \r\nnot a soldier of upright honor:\r\nThe protector of the Confederate Dead oversees those who fought in war, \r\ndied perhaps in hopes of victory or in the long years after defeat.\r\nChildhood memories of this beast remain hushed\r\nFor he lounged in his tomblike pose\r\nwith somber silence an a permanent stone snarl\r\neverytime we visited Mario,\r\nour older brother sent to live in the state home for the others like him.\r\n\"Retarded children\" who grew into adults \r\nfar away from their families in big cities, small towns, developing suburbs,\r\nschools with proms, sports teams, theater programs, rules about uniforms and hair,\r\nand the normal angst and joys of growing children.\r\nSeparated.\r\nThey lived, learned, slept, ate, and developed in every way within \r\nfeet of this sad-honored, isolated lion.\r\nSet apart.\r\nThe crowded home seemed ever silent, sitting directly next to the cemetery of the fallen.\r\nAn odd placement for a state school, yet horrifically fitting.\r\nBoth stood at the back-most spot at the edge of town: \r\na place for the forgotten, the unpleasant, the no longer fit, the defeated.\r\nThe soldiers' ages on the tombstones -- teenagers, young men, only a few who died aged.\r\nThe children next door, born in times of poverty and misunderstanding, dying in childhood,\r\nin teen years,\r\ninto their adult years still dying too young.\r\nNo more than a few living fully.\r\nThe school has closed, \r\nthe cemetery has grown controversial in these cruel times, \r\nyet the lion remains, watching, seeing, observing, somber, cold, and cruel. \r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<header class=\"entry-header\"><\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>\n<pre><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cdn.tripadvisor.com\/media\/photo-s\/08\/67\/8e\/44\/confederate-memorial.jpg\" \/>\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Its head resting on the crest, the lion still guards the Confederate soldiers buried in the aftermath of Civil War. Not a gargoyle spouting water, not an angel of compassion, not a soldier of upright honor: The protector of the Confederate Dead oversees those who&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-marathon-poem","post_format-post-format-link"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34039","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\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34039"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34611,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34039\/revisions\/34611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}