I remember clearly,
\nIt was my tenth birthday,
\nMy parents had planned a surprise party.
\nBut what intrigued me,
\nWas the big brown basket sitting on my bed,
\nWith a red ribbon tied at the end.<\/p>\n
At first, I had thought,
\nGrandma had sent her healthy oatmeal cookies.
\nBut then I saw,
\nThe brown cloth over the basket moved.<\/p>\n
Fearfully I tugged the cloth,
\nImmediately you sprang upon me,
\nLicking my face as if it were candy.
\nYour brown eyes,
\nLooked innocently at me.
\nYour golden brown fur glistened,
\nAs you sniffed around the unfamiliar room.<\/p>\n
That day Mom and Dad had surprised me,
\nNot with the party,
\nI knew they were planning for weeks,
\nBut with the new member of our home.<\/p>\n
They had given me a gift, a blessing,
\nThat no money could ever buy,
\nThe gift of friendship and loyalty,
\nHanded to me in a brown basket with a red ribbon.<\/p>\n
That day I met Cocoa for the first time,
\nThat day I made a best friend for life,
\nMy four-legged best friend,
\nCocoa.<\/p>\n
– Addy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I remember clearly, It was my tenth birthday, My parents had planned a surprise party. But what intrigued me, Was the big brown basket sitting on my bed, With a red ribbon tied at the end. At first, I had thought, Grandma had sent her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1468,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7,13],"tags":[1173,23,31,326,410,15,391,10,355,390,1084],"class_list":["post-66488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous","tag-half-marathon","tag-life","tag-love","tag-marathon","tag-memories","tag-poem","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-marathon","tag-writer","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66488","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\/1468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67293,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66488\/revisions\/67293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}