This forest sounds like crunch of broken open<\/p>\n
underfoot, seed pods that stink like rotting meat<\/p>\n
when they fall to the ground. In the Guanacaste trees<\/p>\n
howler monkeys moan like wounded dogs.<\/p>\n
And northwest of La Casona a road so dissected,<\/p>\n
so rutted you have to rent a jeep<\/p>\n
to drive the fifty miles from the parking lot<\/p>\n
through tom bush, pigeon wood and quira<\/p>\n
before you reach the beach access. From here<\/p>\n
a poisonous trail slithers over an empty creek bed,<\/p>\n
Path of the Burnt Man named for the gumbo-limbo tree<\/p>\n
whose red bark hangs shredded like dead skin,<\/p>\n
the trunk\u2019s musculature and nerve endings raw<\/p>\n
and exposed. Everything in this park feels sharp<\/p>\n
and unwelcoming, but you\u2019ve come to see<\/p>\n
the Green Sea Turtles, the one percent that survive<\/p>\n
long enough to return to their birth place<\/p>\n
after a ten year ocean sojourn, the giants<\/p>\n
who drag their unsupported weight<\/p>\n
onto the beach and dig holes in the sand deep enough<\/p>\n
to hold a hundred perfectly round white eggs,<\/p>\n
then cover them over before they leave.<\/p>\n
No mother, no father to lead their young to safety.<\/p>\n
Just sun, sand and birds with their sharp beaks<\/p>\n
and the waves with their fake promises.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This forest sounds like crunch of broken open underfoot, seed pods that stink like rotting meat when they fall to the ground. In the Guanacaste trees howler monkeys moan like wounded dogs. And northwest of La Casona a road so dissected, so rutted you have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":998,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38376","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\/998"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38429,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38376\/revisions\/38429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}