{"id":150308,"date":"2019-12-23T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=150308"},"modified":"2019-12-21T10:49:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T10:49:43","slug":"terra-incognita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/12\/terra-incognita\/","title":{"rendered":"Terra Incognita"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>1.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Sitting dark and tight<br \/>\nIn crepuscular light,<br \/>\nYou pass the shuttered houses<br \/>\nThat line the half-lit streets,<br \/>\nThe weekend retreats<br \/>\nOf absent urbanites, their country dreams<br \/>\nThat only money can redeem<br \/>\nOr so it seems to them when counting<br \/>\nOut their lives in latte spoons.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">An evening walk. No smells<br \/>\nOf steaks in passageways.<br \/>\nNo tinkling of a glass, no laugh<br \/>\nThat might suggest a face<br \/>\nCould press against a pane<br \/>\nTo see who might be passing.<br \/>\nThe only sign of life the breeze,<br \/>\nThe falling leaves, the silent sound<br \/>\nOf the moon\u2019s bright weeping.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">You wipe your eyes and ask,<br \/>\nWhat is this aching for a home<br \/>\nThat can\u2019t be bought or found?<br \/>\nWhy did Odysseus try to dodge the war,<br \/>\nThe Prodigal Son come back, the young<br \/>\nAbandoned girl go far away in search<br \/>\nOf shelter in a meditative secret sound<br \/>\nTo quell the lonely panic in her soul?<br \/>\nSuch answers empty houses never told.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>2.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">You stretch your neck and watch<br \/>\nThem rise and sail across the sky.<br \/>\nYou laugh and wonder where they\u2019re heading,<br \/>\nWhat they mean by going to eternal rest.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Your mother used to make you guess<br \/>\nAt what you really could not say.<br \/>\n\u201cNow that you\u2019ve made your home<br \/>\nIn Massachusetts longer than with us,<br \/>\nWhere do you say that you are from?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I never thought to answer her<br \/>\nThat what I\u2019ve always wondered<br \/>\nIs where I\u2019m going,<br \/>\nNot from whence I sprung.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">How could I tell my dying mother,<br \/>\nWho would beg me not to let her go<br \/>\nInto the undiscovered country that she dreaded,<br \/>\nThat all the dwellings that I saw were dreams<br \/>\nAnd all the people merely dreamers,<br \/>\nNot a bit like where her hope was headed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">It\u2019s hard to say I\u2019ll ever stop<br \/>\nWalking down streets that lead<br \/>\nTo streets that weave past vacant houses<br \/>\nOn silent nights in crepuscular light.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">How do you say we all are wanderers now,<br \/>\nHomeless modern minds exiled from time,<br \/>\nThinking that God has left us banished here,<br \/>\nBut knowing we have not come near<br \/>\nThe terra incognita that we\u2019re yearning for?<\/p>\n<p><em>__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/edward-curtin-e1522422941369.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-108249\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/edward-curtin-e1522422941369.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/em><em>Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely. He is a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/\" >TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. Website: <\/em><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/edwardcurtin.com\/\" >Behind the Curtain<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sitting dark and tight<br \/>\nIn crepuscular light,<br \/>\nYou pass the shuttered houses<br \/>\nThat line the half-lit streets,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":108249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[868],"class_list":["post-150308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-format","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}