{"id":88698,"date":"2017-04-10T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=88698"},"modified":"2017-03-17T16:07:38","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T16:07:38","slug":"lahore-easter-sunday-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/04\/lahore-easter-sunday-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Lahore, Easter Sunday, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>On this day the Taliban bombed a popular playground\/park which was well attended by families and their young children.\u00a0 Because it was Easter, they were targeting Christian children and their families, though Muslim, Hindu, Jewish children and their families were also killed.<\/em><\/div>\n<p>Blessed child of my child, son of the dawn over the Indian<br \/>\nOcean, darling of robins who sing in the spring;<br \/>\nit was a perfect day, balmy air and gentle breezes.<br \/>\nThe bulbs sleeping in the earth burst through their skins<br \/>\nand adorned the daffodils in yellow dresses, dogwood<br \/>\nput forth thick white blossoms, tulips wore scarlet garb<br \/>\nhollyhocks against the hedges,<br \/>\nsilver roses curled around a carousel.<br \/>\nI taught you the names of all the flowers in my garden<br \/>\nwhere you fell in love with ladybugs and hated spiders.<br \/>\nYou watched the silkworm feast on mulberry.<br \/>\nBefore you were two, you knew the succulence<br \/>\nof truffles on roasted lamb with jasmine rice.<br \/>\nYou lived each day anew with that ineffable delight<br \/>\nreserved for the aged and innocent.<br \/>\nEach laugh set my heart assail like golden lanterns<br \/>\non an evening lake.\u00a0 Your eyes were two coals on fire.<br \/>\nAll my hopes and all my dreams lay within<br \/>\nthe parenthesis of your smile.<br \/>\nThat was before the Taliban.<br \/>\nWho knows what turns men to beasts who lack<\/p>\n<p>remorse for the slaughter of women and children?<br \/>\nWiser and ennobled men, who understand<br \/>\nthe obscurity of war, curse and weep .<br \/>\nThe shrapnel took the lion\u2019s face<br \/>\nand broke the tiger\u2019s back.<br \/>\nThe giraffe\u2019s neck was cut in half.<br \/>\nThe pony lost his shaggy main.<br \/>\nThe spray of nails tore through<br \/>\nthe swan\u2019s feathered\u00a0 breast and your brain.<br \/>\nNo one caught the golden ring the day the music stopped.<\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>Barbara Millar is a free lance writer and poet from northern California who was a young anti-war protester during the Vietnam War.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On this day the Taliban bombed a popular playground\/park which was well attended by families and their young children.  Because it was Easter, they were targeting Christian children and their families, though Muslim, Hindu, Jewish children and their families were also killed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88698","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=88698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}