{"id":857,"date":"2020-05-08T22:34:06","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T22:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/?p=857"},"modified":"2020-05-08T22:34:07","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T22:34:07","slug":"may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/?p=857","title":{"rendered":"May"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\"><br>If you were looking for some dark optimism<br>From a walk among the tower blocks, in the gloaming<br>What would you miss, in the long low seduction of the light<br>Waning pink behind the clouds, behind the towers?<br><br>The river moves; the air\u2019s scent of flowers<br>Floats past as I hang on the concrete<br>(was it always so thick with lichen?)<br>And weep.<br><br>The corner store is closed, shutters down.<br>No milk or old onions, no sweets.<br>I saw an ambulance there last week.<br><br>By the Thames a couple arm in arm<br>Springtime romance blooming, their masks fitted tight.<br>He jokes about throwing himself in the river<br>\u201cBut\u201d she says, \u201cyou\u2019ll be at work\u201d.<br><br>In the yellow evening I want to hope<br>Passing through the square with the bunting<br>The open pub (landlord in gloves)<br>And the jolly blonde families in deck chairs<br>2 metres apart, on their front lawns, <br>The stylish young arrayed with plastic cups<br>Celebrating victory 75 years ago.<br><br>The dead are still dead.<br>And the living, us<br>Are waiting. <br><br>This is the easy part. <br>Songs on the air in the flower scented evening<br>Barbecue and take-out beer.<br>Next week, tomorrow, the beer must be served<br>The trash taken out<br>The children taught.<br><br>And how? <br>To be alive is<br>To<br>Be alive, until<br>The spring is spring without you.<br><br>(In memory of Barbara Powell, November 1950-May 2002)<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you were looking for some dark optimismFrom a walk among the tower blocks, in the gloamingWhat would you miss, in the long low seduction of the lightWaning pink behind the clouds, behind the towers?The river moves; the air\u2019s scent of flowersFloats past as I hang on the concrete(was it always so thick with lichen?)And [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sUfdR-may","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonpowell.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}