The Pier<\/p>\n
I spent many a year catching fish by the buckets
\nUpon the Gulf of Mexico\u2019s shoreline
\nFrom sand trout to sharks and gafftop to eel
\nMy childhood grew wildly there
\nIt kept me from trouble, away from that crowd
\nSpecial bonding time for Dad and me
\nThat was, til the day that his health put him under
\nAnd stole from him his own liberty<\/p>\n
After Dad had passed, I had lost the pier too
\nAs a hurricane swept through its core
\nThe grandiose place of my youth left in toothpicks
\nA large gaping hole at the shore
\nThe owners vowed then to rebuild yet again
\nAnd I too vowed then to go back
\nTo rekindle those glorious days from my youth
\nAnd to honor my Dad in return<\/p>\n
The pier was rebuilt and life got in the way
\nI grew up, I married and moved
\nBut deep in my heart, I held tight to the need
\nTo go back to this place of my youth
\nSo one day with my then husband in tow
\nI headed back to the pier at the shore
\nSurreal in a way that I walked off with Dad
\nAnd returned with a spouse at the door<\/p>\n
I took in the sights of the sunset and waves
\nI spotted the birds and the fish
\nI smiled o\u2019er the fact that I had in a way
\nLived out my Dad\u2019s own dying wish
\nTo never forget all those days at the coast
\nThose days at the Gulf, long departed
\nFor if one thing was true, it was love never fades
\nIt remains within the brokenhearted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pier I spent many a year catching fish by the buckets Upon the Gulf of Mexico\u2019s shoreline From sand trout to sharks and gafftop to eel My childhood grew wildly there It kept me from trouble, away from that crowd Special bonding time for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":692,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1136,441,5],"tags":[4125,4673,1806,3456,3783,4671,4672],"class_list":["post-99935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts","category-poetry-prompt-responses","category-poetry-prompts","tag-2021-poetry-marathon","tag-family-poetry","tag-jill-eisnaugle","tag-jill-halasz","tag-ocean-poems","tag-pier-poems","tag-poems-of-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99935","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\/692"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99944,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99935\/revisions\/99944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}