They were my tomes from childhood.<\/p>\n
A retreat from the drudgery of schoolwork,<\/p>\n
That I would escape to at every opportunity.<\/p>\n
They were my books.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What followed was a wanton calamity<\/p>\n
Akin to the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.<\/p>\n
A catastrophe that could have been prevented,<\/p>\n
Had I not neglected to peruse them all this time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This annihilation was years in the making.<\/p>\n
A combination of relentless monsoon rain,<\/p>\n
A gradual erosion of soil,<\/p>\n
And weak wooden walls in the subterranean.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Those damned termites grew in hordes.<\/p>\n
Remorselessly eating their way into my home.<\/p>\n
Munching through every page cover to cover,<\/p>\n
Turning all my precious volumes into cellulose pulp.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Realisation came belatedly.<\/p>\n
The exterminators were too late.<\/p>\n
Everything was absolutely destroyed.<\/p>\n
I am bereft at this devastating loss.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2017 S Phua<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They were my tomes from childhood. A retreat from the drudgery of schoolwork, That I would escape to at every opportunity. They were my books. What followed was a wanton calamity Akin to the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. A catastrophe that could…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2114,1136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-announcement","category-official-marathon-prompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43199","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\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43208,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43199\/revisions\/43208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}