{"id":40258,"date":"2017-08-06T01:03:34","date_gmt":"2017-08-06T05:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=40258"},"modified":"2017-08-06T01:03:34","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T05:03:34","slug":"tempest-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/tempest-2\/","title":{"rendered":"tempest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen women were birds, we knew otherwise. We knew our greatest freedom was in taking flight at night, when we could steal the heavenly darkness for ourselves, navigating through the intelligence of stars and the constellations of our own making in the delight and terror of our uncertainty.\u201d – Terry Tempest Williams<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

i roared for the first time when<\/span><\/p>\n

i was ready and i was never told by other women<\/span><\/p>\n

to adjust my volume or tone, brazen though they were <\/span><\/p>\n

i felt as though i was singing operettas with the birds<\/span><\/p>\n

roar we<\/span><\/p>\n

would \/ will \/ did for we knew<\/span><\/p>\n

that it was death otherwise<\/span><\/p>\n

survival depended on the we<\/span><\/p>\n

the us the tribe we knew<\/span><\/p>\n

the joy bravery fire of our <\/span><\/p>\n

soul was knowing the greatest<\/span><\/p>\n

winged freedom<\/span><\/p>\n

was letting go of what was<\/span><\/p>\n

and taking in <\/span><\/p>\n

what was new taking<\/span><\/p>\n

on the fight earning the flight<\/span><\/p>\n

after being stared at <\/span><\/p>\n

groped in the night<\/span><\/p>\n

stolen from ourselves when<\/span><\/p>\n

forced into a yes position we<\/span><\/p>\n

screamed no as loud as we could<\/span><\/p>\n

don\u2019t you steal<\/span><\/p>\n

me from me the<\/span><\/p>\n

heartbeat in our ears heavenly<\/span><\/p>\n

proof that we were alive in the darkness<\/span><\/p>\n

being told to smile for<\/span><\/p>\n

you not for ourselves<\/span><\/p>\n

the maps torn from us while navigating<\/span><\/p>\n

the stormy seas through<\/span><\/p>\n

fog saltwater grief the<\/span><\/p>\n

lighthouse of our intelligence<\/span><\/p>\n

was lit by the fires of <\/span><\/p>\n

those stars<\/span><\/p>\n

who came before us and<\/span><\/p>\n

commanded that we roar the <\/span><\/p>\n

battle cry of our hearts to the constellations<\/span><\/p>\n

touching our fingertips to the dust of<\/span><\/p>\n

stars that burned out long before our<\/span><\/p>\n

lives bloomed forth our own<\/span><\/p>\n

phoenix sparking from ashes free making<\/span><\/p>\n

filth dirt soot rise in<\/span><\/p>\n

the throats of the<\/span><\/p>\n

patriarchy to our delight<\/span><\/p>\n

our womanly delight and<\/span><\/p>\n

never again to kneel under the weight of terror<\/span><\/p>\n

that is born of<\/span><\/p>\n

ignorance fear silence our<\/span><\/p>\n

voices will not be choked by uncertainty<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen women were birds, we knew otherwise. We knew our greatest freedom was in taking flight at night, when we could steal the heavenly darkness for ourselves, navigating through the intelligence of stars and the constellations of our own making in the delight and terror…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":995,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,441,1135],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous","category-poetry-prompt-responses","category-testimonials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40258","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\/995"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40410,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40258\/revisions\/40410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}