{"id":1027,"date":"2017-06-30T13:37:05","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T13:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olioweb.me.uk\/wordpress_marcus\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2024-08-19T15:42:26","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T15:42:26","slug":"poem-of-the-month-july-2017-feathered-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/?p=1027","title":{"rendered":"Poem of the Month, July 2017: Feathered Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>FEATHERED FRIENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Do you understand nembutsu?&#8217;<br \/>\nI asked the tree.<br \/>\n&#8216;Yes I do,&#8217; said.<\/p>\n<p>Pay no attention<br \/>\nto other people&#8217;s behaviour.<br \/>\nFocus on your own.<\/p>\n<p>At peace with the world,<br \/>\na little cluster of ducks<br \/>\nnestles in the grass.<\/p>\n<p>They must have heard me!<br \/>\nI watch them slowly waddle<br \/>\nin my direction.<\/p>\n<p>All is nembutsu.<br \/>\nThree lads playing with a ball<br \/>\nare bodhisattvas.<\/p>\n<p>A park is a place<br \/>\nyou forget those that hate you<br \/>\nand return to life.<\/p>\n<p>Here on this green bench<br \/>\nI&#8217;m anything but alone.<br \/>\nSunshine on the page.<\/p>\n<p>Am I that blackbird<br \/>\nwhistling its glorious song<br \/>\nwith angelic wings?<\/p>\n<p>Sing, and be heard<br \/>\nby the four walls of your garden,<br \/>\nas Voltaire remarked.<\/p>\n<p><em>Botanieken Hof, 26 June &#8217;17.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FEATHERED FRIENDS &#8216;Do you understand nembutsu?&#8217; I asked the tree. &#8216;Yes I do,&#8217; said. Pay no attention to other people&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}