{"id":44828,"date":"2018-11-05T15:02:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T20:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=44828"},"modified":"2018-11-05T15:19:39","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T20:19:39","slug":"stoked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/stoked\/","title":{"rendered":"STOKED"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was so happy when we got that stove<\/p>\n

it had been a good fifteen years since I\u2019d spent a winter warming my coat before going out<\/p>\n

or dropping a hot stone at the bottom of the bed before getting in<\/p>\n

basking in the radiant heat emanating from the heart of the room<\/p>\n

Somehow I\u2019d forgotten the part where you\u2019re up at o dark thirty in your skivies pulling logs out from under a snow capped tarp<\/p>\n

or the dust<\/p>\n

the dust that flies when the sun sparkles off a snow laced morning<\/p>\n

And the stacking and chopping and stoking.<\/p>\n

He stopped stoking the fire when I asked him not to shove the coals to the back of the stove when loading the log<\/p>\n

to notice the lines in each log or to lay the ash beneath the oak<\/p>\n

That was early on<\/p>\n

Knotty wood sizzled and the heavier they were the cooler the burn<\/p>\n

I kept stoking it Sometimes you meet the trees in whole new ways from log to log<\/p>\n

when you are the only one thanking every piece as you keep the family warm for the winter<\/p>\n

I know he misses that stove as much as I do but for very different reasons<\/p>\n

the value to me is in every scar burned into my hands and in the callous that remains<\/p>\n

in every midnight stoke to the sound of guitar coming down from upstairs<\/p>\n

the value lies in knowing it is warming our friends\u2019 space now and in every muscle he tore keeping it in the family<\/p>\n

i know the tears in those muscles and I cherish every one<\/p>\n

if i had carried all half a ton of it not just into my home but up \u00a0mountainsides and back down<\/p>\n

perhaps i know it\u2019s true value<\/p>\n

It\u2019s right back where it belongs<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":907,"featured_media":44829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2763,2762],"class_list":["post-44828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-no-prompt","tag-unofficial-2018-poetry-marathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44828","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\/907"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44828"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44839,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44828\/revisions\/44839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}