{"id":2321,"date":"2014-11-28T22:59:35","date_gmt":"2014-11-29T03:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/?p=2321"},"modified":"2014-11-28T22:59:36","modified_gmt":"2014-11-29T03:59:36","slug":"not-quite-ready-for-rockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/?p=2321","title":{"rendered":"Not Quite Ready for Rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bagend<\/a>

bagend by Mark Harrison<\/p><\/div>\n

Walking barefoot in the back fields
\nBeds of soft folded grass hide in forests of thistles
\nI was missing the purple
\n(there’s usually more this time of year)
\nI found it where the hard packed earth gives way to damp
\nand water squelches between toes
\n(Must walk more carefully here, step by step, like a dancer)
\nGolden rod and Queen Anne’s lace, and milkweed not yet ready to burst<\/p>\n

Open to the sky, the field stretches in long undulating hills
\nThe mowed patches are scratchy and hard;
\nthe long grass softens closer to the shade<\/p>\n

I wish I knew which parts of the plants were edible
\nthe seed pods that look like coriander, but aren’t
\nThey say the roots of the wild carrot are safe;
\nyou may know them by the fans of green that smell like carrots
\n when you step on them, or rub them between your fingers<\/p>\n

There are too many people here, and yet
\nthe number is perfect for the event at hand
\n(Strangers always stand at a distance,
\nno matter how close they are)<\/p>\n

The hitch-hikers cling to the thin fabric of my over-short dress,
\ntiny green tag-alongs, bright as fresh moss,
\nthe brightness of limes, that shine more in the imagination
\n than they do in real life
\nI will be finding traces of them days from now, will notice
\n cuts and scratches as an afterthought, and not remember how I got them<\/p>\n

Walking in long grass is like the idea of walking among lions, or out into the air:
\nIt only works if you don’t over-think it, if you just let things happen
\nMost of the time, it’s not true, what people say about belief
\nbut sometimes it almost is<\/p>\n

Only yesterday, I was murdering grass with a roaring demon fresh out of hell,
\n assuaging my conscience (and my future self’s sense of aesthetics)
\n by leaving islands of peace, tall nodding groves of white,
\n low lying gardens of fuzzy violet and gold
\nAnd yet today I step tip-toe, careful not to crush
\n the precious food of butterflies, the bedding of faeries,
\n and all the small gypsies and thieves that roam underfoot<\/p>\n

Still more people appear, blue toe-nailed and familiar,
\nyet even more out of reach
\nVoices heard since childhood, and yet still not held in confidence,
\n nor yet sought out when silence may be found instead<\/p>\n

The pen is a way of hiding; perhaps more acceptable
\n than the pages of a book, or worse, a glowing screen;
\n\u201cCreative urges in action\u201d, we can say, as an excuse;
\n Grab the moment while you can
\nA transparent wall of words only I can hear,
\nthe magic of black lines transformed into future memories,
\n a pre-post-examination of a now that can never be retrieved,
\n that will always be losing coherence, a moment of truth transformed
\n second by second into fiction, every image more subtle, or more sharp,
\n than it was at the time the moment happened<\/p>\n

And as always, this thought conjures dragons,
\n a quintessential embodiment of how
\n we wish evil would behave in the real world (but doesn’t):
\n Defeatible by a single arrow, if we can find the right spot,
\n the vulnerable patch just beneath the wing, behind the left back leg,
\n where the gold rubbed the scales raw;
\n If we only had a sacred arrow passed down through generations,
\n blessed by the collective belief of the ages,
\n a hundred thousand stories, arguments,
\n songs, revisions, sermons and lies
\n (when we start to write lists, it may be time
\n to put down the pen
\n and go outside.)<\/p>\n

-T.H. <\/em>
\n(written on Grondzilla’s birthday weekend, at the farm, August 2014)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking barefoot in the back fields Beds of soft folded grass hide in forests of thistles I was missing the purple (there’s usually more this time of year) I found it where the hard packed earth gives way to damp … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[870,2,6],"tags":[961,764,963,964,962],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2321"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2326,"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions\/2326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.celticharper.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}