{"id":38637,"date":"2017-08-05T20:45:35","date_gmt":"2017-08-06T00:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=38637"},"modified":"2017-08-05T20:45:35","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T00:45:35","slug":"poem-12-buddha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/poem-12-buddha\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem 12: Buddha"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gollum had it right.<br \/>\n&#8220;My precious,&#8221; he trilled,<br \/>\neyes grown overlarge,<br \/>\ngrasping hands stretched<br \/>\nthin and knobby &#8212;<br \/>\nthe better to reach you with,<br \/>\nmy dear.<\/p>\n<p>If I could hold you tightly enough,<br \/>\nso tight seconds failed to tick<br \/>\nand light forgot to pulse,<br \/>\nwe could claim forever.<br \/>\nThe planets could circle the sun,<br \/>\nthe sun the Milky Way,<br \/>\nthe universe could expand<br \/>\ninto a chilly and<br \/>\nbreathless existence,<br \/>\nand still we would cling,<br \/>\ntogether,<br \/>\nwhole.<\/p>\n<p>You are a better Buddhist than I.<br \/>\nYou live with no expectations,<br \/>\ngive freely,<br \/>\nunderstand the balance of love and pain.<br \/>\nYou own nothing,<br \/>\neven though I would give you<br \/>\nthe gold from my teeth,<br \/>\nthe water from my cells,<br \/>\nthe breath from my lungs.<\/p>\n<p>If I could wrap my fingers around you<br \/>\njust tightly enough,<br \/>\nyou could never squirt away<br \/>\nand swim toward<br \/>\nthe whirlpool&#8217;s center.<\/p>\n<p>Like Gollum,<br \/>\nI do not know how to love<br \/>\nwithout claiming,<br \/>\ncan never know loss<br \/>\nwithout anguish.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-38671\" src=\"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bu-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bu-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bu-768x574.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bu.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gollum had it right. &#8220;My precious,&#8221; he trilled, eyes grown overlarge, grasping hands stretched thin and knobby &#8212; the better to reach you with, my dear. If I could hold you tightly enough, so tight seconds failed to tick and light forgot to pulse, we&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":697,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38637","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\/697"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38682,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38637\/revisions\/38682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}