{"id":3429,"date":"2017-07-24T18:29:54","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T18:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/?p=3429"},"modified":"2017-07-24T18:41:59","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T18:41:59","slug":"3429","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/24\/3429\/","title":{"rendered":"With the Grain"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"left\">\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don&#8217;t want to fade into the pastel sunset<\/strong><\/div>\n<div align=\"left\">\n<div>\n<div align=\"left\">\n<div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in Vero Beach with Barry Manilow<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 playing softly in the background.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nI don&#8217;t want to look like Dick Clark, Ronald Reagan<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or even Liz Taylor.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nI don&#8217;t want to walk my two miles every day<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 at the mall with all the usual suspects<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in the Golden Age Club.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nI don&#8217;t want to circle the wagons and get all<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 my ducks and IRA&#8217;s in a row to defend me<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 against the ravages of uncertainty.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nI don&#8217;t want to spend my whole life erecting<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a Star Wars Defensive Shield to protect me<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 from death.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>No, I want to let my whole body age and weather<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 like an old tobacco barn &#8212; showing the blistering<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 summer heat of loving, and the gray winters<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of grief in every board.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nI want to load my pen, paper and poems<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 into a rucksack and spend the day<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tramping the open roads.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nI want to fan my tiny spark of existence into a blazing<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 campfire under the blind night sky.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nI want never to rage against the dying of the light,<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 but instead, become a dancer in the darkness.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><br \/>\nI want to live every day with my arms outstretched<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and nailed to the grain of experience, dying<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 each morning into the innocence of dawn.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don&#8217;t want to fade into the pastel sunset \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in Vero Beach with Barry Manilow \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 playing softly in the background. I don&#8217;t want to look like Dick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3429"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3439,"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3429\/revisions\/3439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/looseleafhollow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}