We pushed our eager way through the stormy November dusk
\nto keep our father company on his evening walk.
\nThe cattle that he went to check that night
\nmoved slowly through a sloping, generous field
\nonce full of rich grass, thickening hedges and bright summer sun –
\nnow scuffed and bare as it emptied with the year.
\nWinds whistled low through febrile, bony hedges,
\nhulking, beast-like, in the shadowed corners of the field.
\nWe knew this sound for what it was – had grown with it –
\nchose to be wary of it but not to fear.<\/p>\n
It was the phone lines – taut as webbing in that bitter, darkening sky –
\nthat trapped our childish fear then set it scrambling free.
\nPlucked by the prowling breeze, the lines began to hum;
\na chorus of howling voices vacillated with the wind
\nand seemed to echo the approach of some unholy things.
\nIt was the voice of lost and lonely souls caught high in the web of night;
\na hungry legion that capered in the sky above us –
\nthat sought to fall upon us and then take their fill. <\/p>\n
We children recognised the sounds of hunger –
\nand we ran. <\/p>\n
I remember turning from my father in that night-time field,
\nto race, dry-mouthed, in pistoning, thick, fat steps for home;
\nthe heavy rubber of my muddied boots
\nslapping against my calves as I shrieked and ran.
\nThree small girls raced each other to outrun the siren song –
\nwe ran towards light, towards safety and towards what we knew. <\/p>\n
The night closed fast behind us – hungry, dark, unfed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We pushed our eager way through the stormy November dusk to keep our father company on his evening walk. The cattle that he went to check that night moved slowly through a sloping, generous field once full of rich grass, thickening hedges and bright summer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35835","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\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35835"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36403,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35835\/revisions\/36403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}