{"id":4803,"date":"2024-10-10T11:31:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T15:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/?p=4803"},"modified":"2024-10-10T11:31:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T15:31:52","slug":"a-poem-for-a-thursday-280","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/10\/a-poem-for-a-thursday-280\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem for a Thursday #280"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Will Swann<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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I have only featured Barbara Hamby once <\/a>before and, really, that is a crime. I love her conversational style about everyday things. I think that is one of the things I have come to like about poetry. It shines a light on little things that otherwise might be overlooked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Engine like a Singer sewing maching, where have you
     not carried me\u2014to dance class, grocery shopping, 
into the heart of darkness and back again? O the fruit 
     you've transported\u2014cherries, peaches, blueberries,
watermelons, thousands of Fuji apples\u2014books,
     and all my dark thoughts, the giddy ones, too,
like bottles of champagne popped at the wedding of two people
     who will pass each other on the street as strangers
in twenty years. Ronald Reagan was president when I walked
     into Big Chief Motors and saw you glimmering
on the lot like a slice of broiled mahi mahi or sushi
     without its topknot of tuna. Remember the months
I drove you to work singing \"Some Enchanted Evening\"?
     Those were scary times. All I thought about
was getting on I-10 with you and not stopping. Would you
     have made it to New Orleans? What would our life
have been like there? I'd forgotten about poetry. Thank God,
     I remembered her. She saved us both. We were young
together. Now we're not. College boys stop us at traffic lights
     and tell me how cool you are. Like an ice cube, I say,
though you've never had air conditioning. Who needed it?
     I would have missed so many smells without you\u2014\u2014
confederated jasmine, magnolia blossoms, the briny sigh
     of the Gulf of Mexico, rotting 'possums scattered
along 319 between Sopchoppy and Panacea. How many holes
     are there in the ballet shoes in your back seat?
How did that pair of men's white loafers end up in your trunk?
     Why do I have so many questions, and why
are the answers like the animals that dart in front of your headlights
     as we drive home from the coast, the Milky Way
strung across the black velvet bowl of the sky like the tiara
     of some impossibly fat empress who rules the univers
but doesn't know if tomorrow is December or Tuesday or June first.

Ode to My 1977 Toyota 
Barbara Hamby<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have only featured Barbara Hamby once before and, really, that is a crime. I love her conversational style about everyday things. I think that is one of the things I have come to like about poetry. It shines a light on little things that otherwise might be overlooked. Engine like a Singer sewing maching, where have you not carried me\u2014to dance class, grocery shopping, into the heart of darkness and back again? O the fruit you’ve transported\u2014cherries, peaches, blueberries,watermelons, thousands of Fuji apples\u2014books, and all my dark thoughts, the giddy ones, too,like bottles of champagne popped at the wedding of two people who will pass each other on the street as strangersin twenty years. Ronald Reagan was president when I walked into Big Chief Motors and saw you glimmeringon the lot like a slice of broiled mahi mahi or sushi without its topknot of tuna. Remember the monthsI drove you to work singing “Some Enchanted Evening”? Those were scary times. All I thought aboutwas getting on I-10 with you and not stopping. Would you have made it to New Orleans? What would our lifehave been like there? I’d forgotten about poetry. Thank God, I remembered her. She saved us both. We were youngtogether. Now we’re not. College boys stop us at traffic lights and tell me how cool you are. Like an ice cube, I say,though you’ve never had air conditioning. Who needed it? I would have missed so many smells without you\u2014\u2014confederated jasmine, magnolia blossoms, the briny sigh of the Gulf of Mexico, rotting ‘possums scatteredalong 319 between Sopchoppy and Panacea. How many holes are there in the ballet shoes in your back seat?How did that pair of men’s white loafers end up in your trunk? Why do I have so many questions, and whyare the answers like the animals that dart in front of your headlights as we drive home from the coast, the Milky Waystrung across the black velvet bowl of the sky like the tiara of some impossibly fat empress who rules the universbut doesn’t know if tomorrow is December or Tuesday or June first.Ode to My 1977 Toyota Barbara Hamby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4804,"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-4803","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\/4803","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=4803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4806,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4803\/revisions\/4806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}