The sun purred cautiously
\nand stroked my back with claws now sheathed,
\nbattle-weary lion —
\nspiralled down black distant dots
\nin shimmering thermals to their prey.
\nWhile she fought the moon for the firmament,
\nmemories of grasses dried,
\ndied and sprung again.<\/p>\n
There was no game.
\nLittle life remained to cross my path;
\nwhile time passed on too fast to pause
\nand wait for me to dig
\nrabbits of freedom with my dog.
\nSo kicking my boots with the talcum sand
\nI rapidly walked the road.<\/p>\n
I met the oldest oak
\nand kind moss-fingered
\nponderous limbs
\nasked to oak-leaf me and lift
\nand heft and hold my weight.
\nI left my boots
\nand I swung,
\nshimmied,
\njumped and crawled
\nto the very
\ntip-
\ntop . . .
\nwhere the gaps in the cool green leaves
\nglimpsed the golden splendor of the sky,
\nof sundown.<\/p>\n
I saw and swore I would not descend,
\nnever walk on bloodless
\nto the black highway —
\nBut when from a perfect airplant cup
\nuncurled a curious circus coral snake,
\nI had to climb down from my limbs in fear,
\nunripe. He came too near.<\/p>\n
Had I met him,
\nlet him kiss my hand,
\nI could have hugged the rough old bark as tight
\nas now these bars, my ribs —
\nI would have dried,
\nfertilly burning, someday maybe sprouting
\nResurrection Fern.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trinity Review – 1967<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The sun purred cautiously and stroked my back with claws now sheathed, battle-weary lion — spiralled down black distant dots in shimmering thermals to their prey. While she fought the moon for the firmament, memories of grasses dried, died and sprung again. There was no game. Little life remained toRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1963-1967","category-poetry"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":638,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}