{"id":973,"date":"2020-11-22T11:47:09","date_gmt":"2020-11-22T11:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/?p=973"},"modified":"2020-11-23T16:49:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T16:49:41","slug":"my-shell-barely-cracked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/2020\/11\/22\/my-shell-barely-cracked\/","title":{"rendered":"My Shell Barely Cracked"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"869\" height=\"155\" src=\"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/11-22-2020-FOX-2.jpg-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-978\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/11-22-2020-FOX-2.jpg-4.jpg 869w, https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/11-22-2020-FOX-2.jpg-4-300x54.jpg 300w, https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/11-22-2020-FOX-2.jpg-4-768x137.jpg 768w, https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/11-22-2020-FOX-2.jpg-4-604x108.jpg 604w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 869px) 100vw, 869px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/audio\/My%20Shell%20Barely%20Cracked.m4a?_t=1606046133\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"fonts-plugin-block\" style=\"font-weight: normal;font-size: 15px;line-height: 1.3\"><strong><em>My Shell Barely Cracked<\/em><\/strong><br>\u00a0<br>Joining joyful swifts and weeping willows<br>still surfing break of day, pillowed banks<br>of gangs of clouds converged their herd<br>along the western ridge; formed a bridge,<br>and stayed to play. Torrents make strong<br>currents. The moaning Wabash River<br>groaned full against its bank, where<br>keening pines flanked: its rushing trek<br>merged stream and beck bashing stone to<br>stone crashing them along its way and<br>dreaming icy shivered songs down inside<br>that river\u2019s spine.\u00a0 Those gleaming<br>limestone bones, abide alone, pushing<br>driven hard against the gridlocked pine.<br>\u00a0<br>I love this world, this sacred world, its burled<br>trees, it\u2019s unfurled flowers, its white pearled<br>shells and loamy smells so laced into the froth<br>of life, the very broth of space and Soul.<br>I love sweet birdsong, plan for wings, join the<br>singing, echoed drifts of swifts still clinging<br>to the blue of sky at eve, shredding now its<br>gloaming light as if I might weave with swallows,<br>into darker light; swallows, swallowing the bright.\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>But I\u2019m a youngster compared to Oaks and any<br>note I sang or spoke when my shell barely cracked<br>those ancient Oaks heard just one word. \u00a0I emerged<br>looked squarely West and standing forth on rubber<br>bones with squinting eyes, ablur: feeding on the lure<br>of glinting light cast out before me. I listened to the<br>stones. Vast, the moment I vowed to wander, to<br>write the wonder and sing of winging night with<br>sweeps, of dancing by the beck with weeping willows,<br>of sleeping \u2018neath the Oaks, who taught me my one<br>lone Word. \u00a0<br>Yes.<br>\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>by Barbara Helvey Hughes, 2020<br>\u00a0<br><br>\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":977,"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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}