<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How can a jig
\nEncapsulate life?
\nTwo measures tear me up,
\nTighten my throat
\nCapsize my heart so it floats upside down in my chest,
\nRudder aloft and sails under water.<\/p>\n
It starts with the swallowtails, of course,
\nDipping and diving for insects on the wing
\nClamoring in caves
\nWooing and brooding.<\/p>\n
They fly through a park.
\nDiving kites mimic the birds, drawing my mind toward a
\nFlipped edge of skirt and its
\nRecipient, playing cool on a bench
\nSending back a one-sided grin of
\nPaired hope and disdain.<\/p>\n
Children nearby whose folks started
\nParenting on nothing much more
\nChatter and call through the playground
\nAlready practicing their lives as they\u2019ve been taught.<\/p>\n
One chides, one hides and cries,
\nOne bawls so much the others decide to ignore him,
\nExcept the quiet girl who knows what it means to cry alone.
\nThese other two girls juggle a soccer ball with their feet,
\nThat boy tribe steals it and learn some girls aren\u2019t afraid to hit.
\nOne mom praises, the other derides.<\/p>\n
A set of five, who will live and die at each other\u2019s sides,
\nDig cities in the moist sand, idly daydreaming,
\nSharing a high mileage box of slightly gritty caramel corn.<\/p>\n
Beneath them blades of grass bend,
\nCells vigorous with
\nLife. Their roots extend into the earth, which
\nTeems with worms, beetles, mites, fungi,
\nBacteria.<\/p>\n
My mind tries to grasp each life,
\nExpanding into the trees, the creek, the air.
\nEach biome on every scale is a festival of entities,
\nPulsing with lives grand and pitiable,
\nLucky and cursed,
\nLong and bitterly short.<\/p>\n
Twisting in this infinity,
\nMy heart capsizes.
\nThe Fiddler puts down her bow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How can a jig Encapsulate life? Two measures tear me up, Tighten my throat Capsize my heart so it floats upside down in my chest, Rudder aloft and sails under water. It starts with the swallowtails, of course, Dipping and diving for insects…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":967,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[2133,2316,2318,23,326,15,391,10,2116,2482,2317],"class_list":["post-38093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses","tag-2017-poetry-marathon","tag-laurel","tag-laurel-wilson","tag-life","tag-marathon","tag-poem","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-poetrymarathon2017","tag-the-swallowtail-jig","tag-wilson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38093","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\/967"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38146,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38093\/revisions\/38146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}