It was a rainy year in college.
\nI had a raincoat,
\nBut the drops would always reach my glasses.
\nAnd three-quarters blind on rain-slick concrete stairs
\nis no way to weather a storm.<\/p>\n
My first attempts were colorful, light,
\nportable, collapsible.
\nA fine companion in a drizzle,
\nalthough scarcely broad enough even for me.
\nBut a hard New England wind, a gust of misery,
\nwould throw the flimsy things inside out,
\nleaving deformed shelter and drenched disappointment.<\/p>\n
Then I found the right fit:
\ndouble-layered, with a grip built for battle,
\na stainless steel spine, and a hood black as despair.
\nI carried it forth into wrenching gales
\nand weeping downpours
\nand came out clear-eyed and unbowed,
\neven when my shoes were soaked.<\/p>\n
At first I held it low and close,
\na double-octagon of barely-covered spokes
\nwarding off both water and fools.
\nBut with time, I offered the\u00a0shivering forms,
\ncaught unprepared in life’s storms,
\nfriends or strangers alike,
\na place in that dome of dryness.<\/p>\n
The grace and purpose of any umbrella,
\nis to be shared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a rainy year in college. I had a raincoat, But the drops would always reach my glasses. And three-quarters blind on rain-slick concrete stairs is no way to weather a storm. My first attempts were colorful, light, portable, collapsible. A fine companion in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65055","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\/1262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65909,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65055\/revisions\/65909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}