{"id":669,"date":"2015-03-05T18:12:36","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T18:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olioweb.me.uk\/wordpress_marcus\/?p=669"},"modified":"2024-08-19T16:28:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T16:28:21","slug":"poem-of-the-month-march-2015-pavane-for-a-dead-infanta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/?p=669","title":{"rendered":"Poem of the Month, March 2015: Pavane for a Dead Infanta"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(<a title=\"The Moon Has Gone Down (A Sequel to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe Pavane \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u2122)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/?p=682\">CLICK HERE <\/a>for a Sequel to the Pavane: The Moon Has Gone Down)<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAVANE FOR A DEAD INFANTA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Wednesday night at home alone<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nothing remains for me but to recite<br \/>\nNamo Amida Butsu.<\/p>\n<p>I rang my cousin in Bolivia<br \/>\nto speak of Paloma&#8217;s death.<\/p>\n<p>I walk in circles round the room,<br \/>\nwaiting for Maria to get back.<\/p>\n<p>I could number the reasons for living<br \/>\non the fingers of one hand.<\/p>\n<p>She has framed the photograph of Julia<br \/>\nand it stands on my desk<\/p>\n<p>under the white orchids<br \/>\nwhich are staring at me with unseeing eyes.<\/p>\n<p>A normal person would switch on the telly<br \/>\nor listen to music.<\/p>\n<p>I can only think of saying nembutsu<br \/>\nto pass the wakeful hour.<\/p>\n<p>My brain has come to a grinding halt.<br \/>\nThe candle went out by itself.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder how it feels<br \/>\nto be setting out on one&#8217;s final journey.<\/p>\n<p>Will she find the safe and narrow pathway<br \/>\nbetween the furious waves?<\/p>\n<p>Angels attend thee! I have done.<br \/>\nThere is no more poetry in me.<\/p>\n<p>One late night appearance &#8211;<br \/>\ncousin Paloma seems to have reached the moon.<\/p>\n<p>Never again will I gaze at that white orb,<br \/>\nwithout seeing her smile.<\/p>\n<p><em>For my family in Peru and Spain, 4 March 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(CLICK HERE for a Sequel to the Pavane: The Moon Has Gone Down) PAVANE FOR A DEAD INFANTA Wednesday night [&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-669","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\/669","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=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}