{"id":85,"date":"2018-11-16T18:36:12","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T18:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/?p=85"},"modified":"2018-11-16T18:36:12","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T18:36:12","slug":"omens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/omens\/","title":{"rendered":"OMENS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>OMENS<\/strong><br \/>\nSpring is the best-these dark and pre-dawn walks<br \/>\nI take with my dogs. Squawks, whistles, and toots<br \/>\nannounce the chat while the towhee<br \/>\ndrinks its tea. Frogs sing, quiet as we pass them,<br \/>\nthen pick up again. Some months, the moon surprises me<br \/>\nwith my shadow, it is then I look up.<\/p>\n<p>That last morning, there were no signs.<br \/>\nThat afternoon, red hay-twine with orange<br \/>\nsurveyor tape hung across the road.<br \/>\nKeep Out signs were tacked to the trees.<br \/>\nNext morning, I ducked under the tape. Just<br \/>\nenough light and breeze to see the flags on the shrubs.<br \/>\nAnd the spiders&#8217; webbed cups collect the dew,<br \/>\ndo they drink from the strands.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t hear the brush axe slice the slender<br \/>\npine trunk spear-point sharp. Or the bulldozer<br \/>\ntread grinding the gravel that leads to the electric<br \/>\nline easement. Even though I didn&#8217;t see it,<br \/>\nI know the operator powered up and lowered<br \/>\nthe bucket; the earth lay scraped and raw.<br \/>\nOne morning, I startled: something guarded<br \/>\nthe road&#8217;s entrance. Silly me, the For Sale sign. <\/p>\n<p>The bulldozer is gone now, another For Sale sign<br \/>\nposted at the entrance of the woods. Birds<br \/>\nstill sing on territory. Most of the trees still<br \/>\nstand. When they fall, I won&#8217;t hear them,<br \/>\nbut I know the trunk will crack, the crown begin<br \/>\nto lean then fall with a swoosh and a thump.<br \/>\nJust as they did when the land was cleared for my house.<\/p>\n<p>riverSedge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OMENS Spring is the best-these dark and pre-dawn walks I take with my dogs. Squawks, whistles, and toots announce the chat while the towhee drinks its tea. Frogs sing, quiet as we pass them, then pick up again. Some months, the moon surprises me with my shadow, it is then I look up. That last&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/omens\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">OMENS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-published-poems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecatbirdsang.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}