{"id":764,"date":"2023-08-19T16:07:21","date_gmt":"2023-08-19T16:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/?p=764"},"modified":"2025-08-26T21:45:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T21:45:38","slug":"remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/?p=764","title":{"rendered":"Your Delight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For my mother<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember when life was long,
when the world was round
and iridescent, and smelled of honeysuckle?
How it floated, soft as a cloud
through the universe?

Remember how the sun 
would catch the tree line
filter luminous green rays 
onto to the forest floor 
where you and I would walk?
The crunch of last year\u2019s leaves
a suitable carpet 
for our bare and calloused feet. 

How we would forage for berries
black and red 
ecstatic with every ripe discovery, 

how we would eat and smile 
seed-stained teeth
and stretch our fingers to the sky,

how our friends (all kinds) 
would join in our delight-- 
the caterpillars catching our clothes
riding on our shoulders, 
beetles scurrying, just busy enough 
to stop for a while, 
the carpenter bee, my friend Bernard 
would hover and we would 
send our salutations with him 
upon the wind.

The hens would follow
offering subtle chirps 
stopping often to scratch the dirt, 
bend half their head to the ground
then up again, 
jolting a glance in our direction. 
We would laugh and hold them
and I would plant a kiss 
on their dusty heads,
massage their crown until 
the blue film rose 
from their undereye and I knew 
they were at peace.

Remember how we sprinkled 
dandelions on our salad, 
dug wild carrots and spotted 
strawberries along the path? 

Dirt forever beneath my nails,
raspberry scrapes across my arms. 

I would have preferred no other way. 

Ever a new angle of our mother 
to witness, to taste 
and it was always you 
who brought them out for me.

Remember you would come at night 
when the light was low,
pull warmth up to my chin 
and lay beside me 
and we would listen to the August air 
until we drifted with it 
into another dimension.
When the day came, you would smile,
your deep-set eyes would brighten
and I would know
I was part of your delight.

In our Arcadia, how easy it was 
to live, laugh, love<\/em>
when contrast was our moral code: 
we were right and they 
were simply wrong. 

If only I\u2019d known 
how fragile it was
how easy its ruin would be 
how in a moment your smile 
would morph into a grimace
then a scowl

how you would turn away 
and I would never again
see the sun alight upon your face

feel the warmth of green rays upon the forest floor 

hear your laughter and know

I was part of your delight
<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For my mother Remember when life was long,when the world was roundand iridescent, and smelled of honeysuckle?How it floated, soft as a cloudthrough the universe?Remember how the sun would catch the tree linefilter luminous green rays onto to the forest floor where you and I would walk?The crunch of last year\u2019s leavesa suitable carpet for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[788,334,787,785,425,789,199,20,83],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","tag-childhood-memory","tag-emotional-pain","tag-happy-childhood","tag-memory","tag-mother","tag-mother-and-daughter","tag-nostalgia","tag-pain","tag-shattered-worldview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":946,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}