{"id":1798,"date":"2023-08-22T16:07:55","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T20:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/?p=1798"},"modified":"2023-08-22T16:07:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T20:07:58","slug":"a-e-stallings-leaving-the-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/2023\/1798\/poems\/a-e-stallings-leaving-the-island\/","title":{"rendered":"A. E. Stallings: Leaving the Island"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

for JP<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Packing up, we are out of sorts,
And speak as two who’ve never loved.
The chores come due like book reports;
Kids shrug and shirk. At last you’ve shoved<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Into the trunk the broken bike
(Which has to be repaired in town)
You shouldered on a mountain hike
Because the gears jammed halfway down<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you’re ill-slept – the blessed cat
That can’t tell time, except for dawn,
Pawed you awake. The thermostat
That starts your runny nose is on;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But only yesterday you stood
On a ladder in the orange tree
And picked – as many as you could
Globes from our golden orrery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You lift them, and just now, by chance
The bulging sack seems to explode,
And in a mad, atomic dance
They jump in bright arcs down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your anger stutters into curse;
But for the bike, you’d slam the trunk.
I know to laugh would make it worse.
(Whole marriages that way are sunk.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of our hands, our labours spill,
Irretrievable and sweet,
Faster and farther down the hill.
The day’s catastrophe complete,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet aren’t we lightened by an ounce
As our misgivings veer amiss?
My heart leaps as the oranges bounce
Ungovernable as happiness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

for JP Packing up, we are out of sorts,And speak as two who’ve never loved.The chores come due like book reports;Kids shrug and shirk. At last you’ve shoved Into the trunk the broken bike(Which has to be repaired in town)You shouldered on a mountain hikeBecause the gears jammed halfway down And you’re ill-slept – the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[357],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","tag-ungovernable-as-happiness","category-4-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1799,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions\/1799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}