Seven pictures hang
\nOn my grandmother\u2019s bedroom walls:<\/p>\n
1 My Grandfather, whom I did not know
\n2 The gaudy guardian angel hovering behind kids crossing that bridge
\n3 Me
\n4 Teddy Roosevelt, no one seems to know why<\/p>\n
These on the west wall above her hope chest.<\/p>\n
Seven pictures hang
\nOn my grandmother\u2019s bedroom walls:<\/p>\n
The east wall displays<\/p>\n
5 A framed newspaper article, now brown and undoubtedly fragile, Charles Lindbergh landing in Paris
\n6 Her high school diploma<\/p>\n
And above her bed<\/p>\n
7 A dreamy oil painting;<\/p>\n
of a Polynesian beach,
\na place she\u2019d longed to visit,
\nbut, what with working for pennies
\nand raising my father alone,
\nfretting and wrestling his demons,
\nalternately offering Dad
\ntough love and soft,
\nhe largely accepting
\nresponsibility for her reddened eyes,
\ncobweb thin hair, leathery outlook,
\ntime ran short
\nfor making it to Maui.<\/p>\n
One picture does not hang
\nIn my grandmother\u2019s bedroom:<\/p>\n
o Regret<\/p>\n
I hand each of these to Dad
\nOne at a time.
\nHe stacks them
\nIn a box
\nDestined for
\nHis attic.
\nIn a few years I\u2019ll
\nHave to unpack them again
\nAnd wonder what Teddy Roosevelt
\nIs doing there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seven pictures hang On my grandmother\u2019s bedroom walls: 1 My Grandfather, whom I did not know 2 The gaudy guardian angel hovering behind kids crossing that bridge 3 Me 4 Teddy Roosevelt, no one seems to know why These on the west wall above her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89929","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\/1246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89929"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104468,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89929\/revisions\/104468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}