I patted the earth<\/p>\n
As lovingly as one could with the huge shovel of the excavator.<\/p>\n
I shut off the rumbling motor.<\/p>\n
My bones rattled on, no longer able to work but not quite able to rest either.<\/p>\n
I was finished.<\/p>\n
I had now buried everyone I knew,<\/p>\n
And some I didn’t.<\/p>\n
No stones marked the graves.<\/p>\n
What for? There was no one left to read them.<\/p>\n
No tears washed my face.<\/p>\n
Crying was a luxury for those who would be comforted.<\/p>\n
I was too tired to comfort myself.<\/p>\n
I closed the door to the shed where I had parked the excavator<\/p>\n
And almost laughed as I observed myself lock it.<\/p>\n
But old habits are hard to break,<\/p>\n
Like living.<\/p>\n
I had warned them about the carriers,<\/p>\n
Alarmed as they dropped off one by one.<\/p>\n
I never warned them about me.<\/p>\n
To say I didn’t know is no excuse.<\/p>\n
I didn’t want to know.<\/p>\n
I never tried to know.<\/p>\n
Even when I did know.<\/p>\n
Now I have been convicted to live.<\/p>\n
Two other carriers help each other join their friends.<\/p>\n
I cannot. I must serve my sentence.<\/p>\n
I slowly returned to the shed that serve as my lodging.<\/p>\n
I went inside<\/p>\n
And locked the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I patted the earth As lovingly as one could with the huge shovel of the excavator. I shut off the rumbling motor. My bones rattled on, no longer able to work but not quite able to rest either. I was finished. I had now buried…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3712,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87688","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\/3712"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87688"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94204,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87688\/revisions\/94204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}