{"id":3652,"date":"2021-12-30T07:21:59","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T12:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/?p=3652"},"modified":"2021-12-30T07:22:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T12:22:02","slug":"a-poem-for-a-thursday-160","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/30\/a-poem-for-a-thursday-160\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for a Thursday #160"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by The New York Public Library<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Catherine Pierce is the 2021 poet laureate of Mississippi. She has written four books of poetry. Pierce is an English professor at Mississippi State University where she codirects the creative writing program. She firmly believes that poetry is for everybody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This morning this planet is covered by winds and blue.\nThis morning this planet glows with dustless perfect light,\nenought that I can see one million sharp leaves\nfrom where I stand. I walk on this planet, its hard-packed\n\ndirt and prickling grass, and I don't fall off. I come down\nsoft if I choose, hard if I choose. I never float away.\nSometimes I want to be weightless on this planet, and so\n\nI wade into a brown river or dive through a wave\nand for a while feel nothing under my feet. Sometimes\nI want to hear what it was like before the air, and so I duck\nunder the water and listen to the muted hums. I'm ashamed\n\nto say that most days I forget this planet. That most days\nI think about dentist appointments and plagiarists\nand the various ways I can try to protect my body from itself.\n\nLast weekend I saw Jupiter through a giant telescope,\nits storm stripes, four of its sixty-seven moons, and was filled\nwith fierce longing, bitter that instead of Ganymede or Europa,\nI had only one moon floating in my sky, the moon\n\ncalled Moon, its face familiar and stale. But this morning\nI stepped outside and the wind nearly knocked me down.\nThis morning I stepped outside and the blue nearly\n\ncrushed me. This morning this planet is so loud with itself--\nits winds, its insects, its grackles and mourning doves--\nthat I can hardly hear my own lamentations. This planet.\nAll its grooved bark, all its sand of quartz and bones\n\nand volcanic glass, all its creeping thistle lacing the yards\nwith spiny purple. I'm trying to come down soft today. \nI'm trying to see this place even as I'm walking through it.\n\nPlanet\nCatherine Pierce<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Catherine Pierce is the 2021 poet laureate of Mississippi. She has written four books of poetry. Pierce is an English professor at Mississippi State University where she codirects the creative writing program. She firmly believes that poetry is for everybody. This morning this planet is covered by winds and blue. This morning this planet glows with dustless perfect light, enought that I can see one million sharp leaves from where I stand. I walk on this planet, its hard-packed dirt and prickling grass, and I don’t fall off. I come down soft if I choose, hard if I choose. I never float away. Sometimes I want to be weightless on this planet, and so I wade into a brown river or dive through a wave and for a while feel nothing under my feet. Sometimes I want to hear what it was like before the air, and so I duck under the water and listen to the muted hums. I’m ashamed to say that most days I forget this planet. That most days I think about dentist appointments and plagiarists and the various ways I can try to protect my body from itself. Last weekend I saw Jupiter through a giant telescope, its storm stripes, four of its sixty-seven moons, and was filled with fierce longing, bitter that instead of Ganymede or Europa, I had only one moon floating in my sky, the moon called Moon, its face familiar and stale. But this morning I stepped outside and the wind nearly knocked me down. This morning I stepped outside and the blue nearly crushed me. This morning this planet is so loud with itself– its winds, its insects, its grackles and mourning doves– that I can hardly hear my own lamentations. This planet. All its grooved bark, all its sand of quartz and bones and volcanic glass, all its creeping thistle lacing the yards with spiny purple. I’m trying to come down soft today. I’m trying to see this place even as I’m walking through it. Planet Catherine Pierce<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem-for-a-thursday"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3652"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3656,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652\/revisions\/3656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}